


Change of Plan

by angelowl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Ableism, Dissociation, Episode Fix-It: s08e05 The Bells, F/M, Jealousy, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21939412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelowl/pseuds/angelowl
Summary: As the Dragon Queen rained down seven holy hells on King’s Landing, Brienne found herself in the last place she’d ever expected: on a beach, moving rocks to clear an exit path for the Lannister twins.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 465
Kudos: 699





	1. Chapter 1

[](https://i.imgur.com/o4sAiJA.jpg)

~* Art by Ro_Nordmann *~

As the Dragon Queen rained down seven holy hells on King’s Landing, Brienne found herself in the last place she’d ever expected: on a beach, moving rocks to clear an exit path for the Lannister twins. 

Screams of terror carried to her on the wind, signaling time was running out and urging her to work faster and faster.

After Bran had delivered a prophesy of doom and Lady Sansa grudgingly released her from her service, Brienne had made a mad dash to King’s Landing. One infuriating conversation with Tyrion later, wherein he as good as admitted to sending his brother off to certain death, and she'd been on her way.

Right on cue, she heard footsteps approaching as she finished clearing enough of the rubble that she could see into the tunnels.

“Brienne?” There was blazing fury in his voice as Jaime crouched down to her level. He would not thank her for this, she knew.

She’d have liked to have cleared more of the rock, but there wasn’t time. It was a narrow opening, but it would have to do.

Brienne couldn’t meet his eye. Instead she thrust her arms out in front of her. “Give me your hands and I’ll pull you both through.”

Cersei went first. Brienne gripped her delicate hands and tugged her through without much effort at all. Once she was free, Brienne reached for Jaime. His good hand was as warm in hers as his golden hand was cold before she bypassed it to wrap her fingers around his forearm to pull him through. She tried to ignore the intense expression on his face which was three parts horrified and one part something she couldn’t name.

Brienne glanced over to see that Cersei was standing over Euron’s dead body with a sneer on her face as Jaime found his footing then rounded on her. He grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. And she knew if she hadn’t been wearing her armor, his fingers would’ve dug in with bruising force.

“What in the seven hells are you doing here?” he hissed.

She glowered at him. “What does it look like? Saving your ungrateful hide. Again.”

“Damn you, Brienne, you’re supposed to be up north. Safe.”

“Well, you were supposed to be down here. Dead. Clearly a change of plan was in order.”

“ _Brienne_ ,” he said menacingly as if he was urging her to do what exactly? Get into the boat and row away without them?

“ _Ser Jaime_ ,” she snapped back, causing his eyes to narrow at her cold formality. 

“What are _you_ doing _here_?” he asked again through gritted teeth. “Why would you do this? After everything…why would you come?”

She took a steadying breath. “I made a vow. In Winterfell, if you’ll recall. I swore I would fight at your side so that’s what I aim to do. It may not have meant much to you, but I take my oaths very seriously.” 

“Of course.” Jaime made a show of derisively eyeing the pommel of her sword. “Lady Brienne always _keeps_ her _oaths_ ,” he spat as if her honor was a curse.

“And as you yourself said,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, as if he hadn’t just mocked the very symbol of what had once tethered them together, “I’ve never run away from a fight. It was foolish of you to assume I would sit this one out. That I’d just let you merrily go to your death.” 

_I’m not your baby brother after all_ , she thought uncharitably.

“Gods be good, I missed your blistering gaze of righteous indignation,” he said faintly, his gaze mapping her face. His lips quirked grimly as his eyes hardened. “You’re not dying for us. You’re not,” he insisted. “If the Dragon Queen’s forces find us, you will hand us over without a fight. You’ll inform them that we are your prisoners and you were merely doing your duty in capturing us. Swear it.”

Brienne lifted her chin, unyielding. “I will not.”

Jaime clenched his jaw and his face went white with fury.

“Hate to interrupt, but we don’t have time for your heartwarming little reunion,” Cersei tossed over her shoulder before taking a seat in the boat, posture erect, looking calm and collected like the queen she was…or had been, as the case may be.

At Cersei’s interjection, they tensed, suddenly mindful of the picture they made, nose to nose with not a hair’s breadth of space between them, both breathing hard and spoiling for a fight.

Jaime stiffly retreated a step, and then another, until there was a respectable distance between them, but he didn’t take his eyes off Brienne. He probably couldn’t bear to see his sister’s reaction.

“Here,” she said, producing two drab, voluminous hooded cloaks so he and his sister could cover up. It’d be helpful if they at least _tried_ to look a little less regal and a bit more peasant. Not that their distinctive looks or proud bearing would ever allow that to happen. “Now give me your golden hand. Daenerys needs to believe you died.”

He jerked his hand away when she tried to reach out to unfasten it. “There’s no time for that.”

“I’m not going with you. I’m staying behind,” she explained. “They know that you were set free. If they don’t find your hand, they’ll never stop searching for you. I’m going to plant the hand on some charred corpse and then try to blend in with Jon’s men.”

Jaime barked out a harsh laugh. “ _You_ are going to blend in? I never credited you with such a sense of humor, my lady. The Dragon Queen knows you’re Sansa’s sworn sword and that you weren’t intending to come south and join the effort. If you’re spotted, she’ll burn you. You stay, you die. And as I already said, you’re not dying for me or my sister. Get in the bloody boat.”

“There’s not enough room,” she stated stubbornly. The very idea of being trapped on a tiny boat with the Lannister twins as they made their escape was infinitely worse than being captured by the Unsullied and made a meal of by Drogon.

“There’s enough room,” he growled. “Besides, I can’t row with one hand, Brienne.”

“Your sister can do it. Bronn will be waiting for you not too far downstream.” Even as she said it, she knew it was futile. 

Jaime didn’t even dignify her preposterous claim with a response, just nudged her onward. “Euron Greyjoy stabbed me,” he finally said, gesturing at himself and she took him in properly for the first time and gasped. Her hand trembled as she reached out toward him, but she remembered herself and pulled away before making contact. “I’m bleeding out, Brienne. I’ll be unconscious soon. Get in the damn boat.”

Brienne did. 

It would’ve made the most sense for Cersei to be in the middle so that their combined weight was more evenly distributed, but Jaime crowded his sister behind him so he was the one in the middle facing Brienne as she took up the oars.

She’d only managed a dozen strokes or so before the Red Keep collapsed in on itself. Brienne’s entire body jolted then she met Jaime’s hooded knowing gaze and tightened her grip on the oars, setting an even more punishing pace.

Brienne had noticed Cersei’s red-rimmed eyes when she’d pulled her out of the tunnels, but the former queen had recovered admirably after her close brush with death. The sight of the Red Keep coming down only seemed to sharpen her wits. She was positively scathing when she addressed them.

“This is the grand escape plan,” Cersei sniped, glancing at the boat and then Jaime with distaste. “Why am I not surprised? It has all the hallmarks of a scheme hatched by the stupidest Lannister.”

After a long moment where Brienne waited for Jaime to snipe back and he didn’t, she cleared her throat. “Actually this was Tyrion’s plan. But you’re right, your little brother championed the Targaryen who’s presently living up to the family name and torching everything in sight so it’s possible everyone overestimated his smarts all this time. What I _do_ know is that you would still be trapped inside the Red Keep if Jaime hadn’t come for you,” she said tightly. “And you _both_ would’ve been buried under rubble if I hadn’t come after that, so why don’t you apply some pressure to your brother’s wounds and we’ll see if I can’t get us out of here.”

“How dare you…” Cersei began, but Brienne cut her off.

“Do you think it wise to alienate the one person who’s actually trying to see you to safety? Your brother is injured. Bronn will turn on us if he gets a better offer. I’m all you have right now so if you’re as smart as you think you are, you’ll shut your mouth.”

Jaime looked at Brienne the same way he had the night of the feast when she’d batted his hand away and tugged him closer to unlace his shirt properly. He managed to appear surprised and unsurprised at the exact same time, but it was the searing heat that accompanied his probing gaze that flustered her. 

She fumbled briefly, biting her lip, as she tried to focus on the task at hand. She couldn't help recalling a memorable night in Winterfell when they’d been playfully wrestling in bed and she’d rolled him so she was astride him, pinning him beneath her. He’d looked up at her with the same savage satisfaction he did now. “You are so glorious when you take charge, my lady,” he’d purred, his hand stroking her thigh. “I am, of course, at your service. Yours to command. Just say the word, Brienne…”

It was inappropriate for Jaime to be looking at her in such a way, considering the circumstances. And it was doubly inappropriate of her to be responding in kind when his sister, the true love of his life, was seated in the very same boat with them. Jaime at least could blame his improper behavior on his rapidly deteriorating condition. What was her excuse?

They lapsed into silence. When the quiet lingered longer than expected for a boat carrying one Jaime Lannister in it, Brienne glanced down. She didn’t like how pale and waxy his complexion had become. And when his lids started to close, she halted her rowing to reach out and lightly slap his cheek.

Jaime jerked at the contact and his lashes fluttered open. When he focused on her, his hand rubbed his stinging cheek as his lips twitched with amusement. “You enjoyed that a little too much, my lady, but I suppose I had it coming,” he said, his words slurring a bit.

There was a dangerous gleam in Cersei’s eye when she lifted her own hand to cover the spot where Brienne’s had made contact with his skin. Her nails dug into his cheek and Jaime flinched.

“Alright, I’m awake. Fuck.” His head was in Cersei’s lap, but his hazy eyes focused on Brienne again. 

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” he said with a feeble wave of his hand that encompassed her rowing and him sprawled on the bottom of the boat between her legs.

Brienne rolled her eyes. “Yes, me doing all the hard work and you just lying there.” 

Jaime laughed and her face burned as she realized how her words could be misinterpreted. She carefully avoided Cersei’s gaze. “Obviously I meant because your hands were bound at the time…”

Realizing she was only digging a deeper grave for herself, she pressed her lips together and focused on rowing as Jaime huffed out another laugh and nudged her calf with his toe.


	2. Chapter 2

Bronn met them at the designated spot, looking far too entertained by the sight of them coming ashore. His gaze swept over their motley trio, darting back and forth between Cersei and Brienne before lingering on Jaime. When he opened his mouth to make some ribald joke, Brienne glared at him and rested her hand on her pommel meaningfully. He dutifully shut his mouth, but she was aware he was only granting her a temporary reprieve. 

She’d be lucky if they made it to the inn before Bronn started letting quips fly about their absurd little triangle. A concept which didn’t even apply to their situation. The Lannister twins were a straight line connecting point A to point B, while Brienne was just a nearby solitary dot, a dot pathetic enough to have imagined a dashed line connected her to Jaime when no such line ever existed.

When they finally set foot back on solid ground again, Jaime was half-delirious. He’d reverted to the man she’d known at Harrenhal, the one who acted like Brienne was an extension of himself. He said her name in the same weak, yet demanding drawl, reaching out as if it was only expected that she’d be there to take his weight. His behavior bordered on the possessive, the needy and the entitled all at once. Somehow that curious blend of vulnerability and spoiled presumption never failed to tug at her heartstrings.

She knew if he was in his right mind he would never have wanted his sister to see him like this with her, but he wasn’t in his right mind. And it’s not like Cersei was physically strong enough to take her place and keep him on his feet so Brienne let him plaster his side all along her own and clutch at her for dear life.

Brienne could sense Cersei was watching them carefully, however when she glanced over, there was merely dark amusement curving her lips. No condemnation or fear or jealousy. And why should there be? 

Jaime couldn’t have made his feelings any plainer. Cersei knew her brother had come back for her, had risked everything to save her, and had been only too happy to die with her. Why would she feel threatened by some pale, lukewarm trust that Jaime placed in Brienne?

Besides, Cersei probably saw this as only what was right. All a great lumbering woman like Brienne of Tarth could be good for was to serve as pack mule for the Lannisters. A beast of burden. 

In spite of everything, it hadn’t felt like duty before in Harrenhal and it didn’t feel like it now when Jaime leaned in toward her like a flower reaching for sunlight. It felt like intimacy. Which was a fanciful thought she ruthlessly stopped in its tracks. 

Even now her traitorous heart whispered comforting lies to her, and she had to call up the dispassionate way Jaime had looked at her in Winterfell before he’d ridden away to dispel them. It was alright that she let her love for him drive her to do what no other spurned woman would ever have done in her position, so long as she did so with her eyes wide open. She couldn’t afford to let wishful thinking cloud her judgment. Cold, hard reality would see her through this.

And the reality was that being needed as an occasional nursemaid or champion was not the same as being desired, let alone loved as a woman.

Cersei had the right of it. Big Brienne falling for the most handsome man in the Seven Kingdoms and her unrequited love being the thing that made all the difference _was_ amusing and worthy of scorn, was it not? It was so…pitifully predictable.

Was this what Cersei envisioned years ago at her son’s wedding when she taunted Brienne about wearing her heart on her sleeve? Could she foresee then that someday the Lannisters might be able to use her ridiculous devotion to their advantage? 

Jaime leaned more heavily on Brienne, curling in toward her as he tried to catch his breath. She cursed herself for shivering when his nose brushed her ear and he panted hotly against her neck.

Her face flushed as he clung to her. She saw the mounts up ahead and she half-carried him the rest of the way, dying to put some distance between them. But that wasn’t to be.

There were only two mounts so they’d have to ride double. And since Jaime was making no effort to extricate himself from where he was braced against her, Bronn seemed to take that to mean they’d elected to ride together. He wasted no time in scooping Cersei up onto his horse.

Between Bronn and Brienne, they were able to manhandle Jaime up onto the other.

Swallowing her serious misgivings, Brienne hauled herself up behind him, her arms coming around him to grab the reins and help keep him ahorse. It was a few hours’ ride to the inn where they would seek refuge so they headed off, Bronn leading the way.

Even in his altered state, Jaime kept up a steady stream of commentary. A lot of it was incoherent, but Brienne found his mumbled nonsense comforting because it meant he was still conscious. What was the opposite of comforting was the way his good hand kept stroking her from elbow to wrist. He was wearing a glove and her vambrace covered the forearm he’d latched onto, but she felt the same catch in her throat as if the contact were skin on skin. She only allowed it to continue because the repetitive motion seemed to soothe him.

After a couple hours, he trailed off and then suddenly his hand tightened on her wrist. His voice remained low, almost a whisper, which meant Brienne had to lean in until they were cheek to cheek so she could discern what he was saying.

“You have to save her,” he said urgently.

She rather thought she’d already more than proved her willingness to do just that, but she couldn’t react as sharply as she’d have liked in the face of his obvious agitation. “I will. _We_ will,” she promised.

He shook his head as if she were being difficult. “No, I mean it. After I die, you have to get her out. Send her home.”

Brienne’s brow furrowed. “Home? Casterly Rock?”

Jaime gave a snarl of disgust. “The fuck are you talking about? Tarth, for fuck’s sake, you cunt.”

And all at once she realized she’d been mistaken on two counts. 1) in his delirium, the person Jaime thought he was arguing with right then was Bronn and 2) it was Brienne herself he was referring to, not his sister.

“You’ll have to catch her unawares and knock her out first,” he continued grimly. “Elsewise, the noble fool will sacrifice herself for Cersei. Don’t give her the chance. Ambush her tomorrow, drag her to the harbor, and stash her on a ship for Tarth. Dump her on the prow and, before you can say ‘ahoy,’ the crew will have installed her as their new figurehead. She’s much more impressive and fearsome than any topless mermaid. Mark my words, the ship will be renamed ‘The Lady Knight’ by the time it reaches Tarth.”

He wanted her to live. That was something, she supposed. He’d said much the same on the beach. 

More than anything else, she thought his insistence that she not sacrifice herself for the twins spoke to his sense of honor, his sense of justice. After all, it was one thing to go to your death for the one you loved, knowing full well they loved you in return. Quite another to do so for someone who did not reciprocate your feelings (Jaime) or worse, someone who would just as soon stab you in the back after you’d done it (Cersei). 

The very notion would be anathema to him.

It should be some small comfort that, if nothing else, Jaime was opposed to Brienne risking her life to give his sister better odds of survival.

Brienne blinked twice, feeling stunned and off balance, and then shook herself. “You’re not going to die, Ser.”

He huffed a humorless laugh as he turned to meet her gaze. There was a spark of recognition as he saw it was Brienne riding behind him instead of Bronn. He smiled broadly at her, seeming to have forgotten the thread of their conversation from not 5 seconds before. 

“Lady Brienne, I can always count on you to be stupidly pigheaded even when all hope is lost. At least I got to see you one last time.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “That’s more than the likes of me deserves.”

Brienne gripped his hand as hard as she dared, willing him to do as she commanded. “You are _not_ going to die, Ser Jaime. I won’t allow it.”

“Yes, Ser,” he said and then promptly passed out, his head lolling back against her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

Night had fallen by the time they reached their destination.

The ‘inn’ Bronn had spoken of was but a dilapidated cottage in the woods barely big enough to house the family of three that ran it. Unsurprisingly, there was nary another guest on the premises. Which under the circumstances was convenient for fugitives such as them.

“How quaint,” Cersei had commented as she eyed the rundown house.

“He’s a good man,” Bronn had said of the faux-inkeep, which meant he was a scoundrel, most likely a smuggler of some sort. But he didn’t so much as bat an eye at any of them so Brienne was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. More importantly, the man knew how to patch people up and had promised he'd help the twins secure passage on a ship in a few days’ time. 

Jaime was installed on a bed in the guest room (the only guest room they possessed) so their host could see to him. Bronn had laughed when Brienne had asked if the man, Denys, had any formal medical training. 

“What, did you think there were maesters aplenty just loitering around these parts?” he’d said with a snort before regaling her with a brutal tale of a tavern brawl and how the man in question had saved Bronn’s life. “My guts were practically spilling out of me. Compared to me, your golden fucker was barely grazed. He should be fine.”

Brienne had assumed Cersei would go in and sit at her brother’s bedside as he was tended to, but instead she followed Brienne and Bronn to the hearth where the wife, Jeyne, and daughter, Alys, served them a warm meal. She had no appetite, but she knew it was short-sighted not to fill her belly when given the opportunity so she choked down some barley bread as Cersei helped herself to another glass of wine. 

Brienne tapped her foot restlessly as she resisted the urge to fly into the room and oversee Jaime’s treatment, but she was well aware she should stay put. That wasn’t her place. She wasn’t his wife or his sister or even really, his friend.

When Jeyne and Alys took their leave of them, Brienne leaned in closer to Bronn to inquire in an undertone about the trustworthiness of the family they were seeking sanctuary from.

“Just don’t ask too many questions and there shouldn't be a problem,” he replied which was not comforting in the least.

Brienne made her displeasure known with a twist of her mouth.

He rolled his eyes. “I hate to break it to you, but someone who’d smuggle a dethroned queen and her brother out of the capital in wartime would never be the honorable sort.”

She took his point. “What’s to say that they won’t sell us out to the Dragon Queen then?” What’s to stop _you_ from betraying us?

Bronn heard the unspoken accusation in her voice. “If I’d wanted to betray you, I’d have done it already, wouldn’t I? And the innkeep who’s helping us is involved in some, shall we say, _illicit_ activities that means he’d never want to draw the eye of the Dragon Queen. We just have to lie low for a few days and everything will work itself out.”

Cersei studied Brienne over the rim of her glass. “You once told me that you didn’t serve my brother, yet here you are…” she said.

“It’s not _service_ that brought me to that cave,” Brienne retorted without thought. When Cersei’s features sharpened, she tried to backtrack. “Honor compelled me to come,” she amended. “Your brother saved my life during the Battle of Winterfell. It was only right that I repay the favor.”

Cersei’s gaze drifted to the lion’s head at Brienne’s hip.

“What an _interesting_ sword. It reminds me terribly of another that belonged to my son, one that now belongs to my…brother. How did you come to be in possession of it?”

“It was given to me to fulfill the oath I made to Lady Catelyn to see her daughters returned safely to the North.”

Cersei must already know the identity of Brienne’s not-so-mysterious benefactor, but she seemed like the petty type who’d demand she spell it out for her, if only to maximize her discomfort. Brienne waited for the inevitable follow-up question, but it never came. 

“Does it have a name?” Cersei asked instead in a singsong voice as if indulging a simpleton. Her mocking tone indicated she found the very notion of naming swords childish. 

Brienne couldn’t help feeling exposed like all her secrets were marching across her transparent skin. “Oathkeeper.”

“How predictably sentimental,” she scoffed with a haughty toss of her head. “Did you come up with that or did my brother?” 

“Aye, Widow’s Wail was a much more dignified name,” Bronn observed drily. 

Cersei went rigid at the slight to her deceased son. Her hand tightened on her glass to the point that it appeared in danger of shattering.

Bronn's smirk grew as if this was all some great game.

Cersei took another drink and then refocused on Brienne as if he was beneath her notice. “Tell me, Lady Brienne, do you keep all your oaths?”

“I try.”

Bronn barked out a laugh. “Don’t let her fool you. She does. No self-preservation, this one.”

Brienne didn’t know why the sellsword had aligned himself with her, but she was grateful for his support all the same. They’d barely spoken two words to each other before today. _Jaime must have confided in him about her_ …but no, best not to wonder about that. 

“If true, you have that in common with Jaime. The vows he holds most dear he never betrays. Family is everything to him.” Cersei lowered her voice then as if imparting a truth she knew Brienne would not wish to hear. “I’m not sure if my brother told you, but there’s a new Lannister on the way.” 

Cersei placed a hand on her belly and her brow furrowed with feigned concern. 

Jaime hadn’t told her, in fact. She’d had to hear about it from Tyrion, which only added insult to injury. His pity had almost driven her to her knees. 

“Yes, I heard,” Brienne finally mumbled, her voice sounding strange as if it were coming from far off.

Bronn slapped his leg. “I s’ppose congratulations are in order then! To the next Greyjoy bastard, long may he reave!” he said with a snicker, lifting his ale in a toast.

Cersei slammed her glass down on the table. “My son is no Greyjoy!”

“Hmm, I’ve never really had a head for numbers, but by my count, I figured your happy tidings would have to be a new development. Begging your pardon, my lady, it must be said that your shape has remained remarkably lithe.” Bronn paused to peer dubiously at her trim waist. “Naturally, I assumed the father would have to be someone who was, y’know, _in your general vicinity_ recently and the most obvious candidate was Euron Greyjoy. Imagine my embarrassment that I pegged the wrong man as father-to-be. What kind of person does that?”

Brienne tried not to react outwardly to his insinuations, but it was impossible to deny he brought up a valid point. She’d been so caught up in ensuring they escaped and then getting Jaime the care he needed that she hadn’t looked, really looked, at the other woman before now. Cersei may yet be pregnant, but the babe couldn’t be Jaime’s. Bronn was right, she’d surely be showing by now if it were his. Too much time had passed for it to be otherwise.

It wouldn’t change anything, not for Jaime, and there were more important matters at play, but Brienne still felt a little shaken by the revelation.

Cersei looked fit to be tied, openly seething instead of hiding it behind a cutting sneer. Before Cersei could hurl her glass at Bronn’s head as she so obviously wanted to, he stood to pour himself another tankard of ale and Brienne took that as her cue to step outside briefly. 

The woods backed up to the cottage. Dense foliage provided adequate coverage and allowed her to stretch her legs and get some fresh air without worrying about detection.

It was a couple hours later when Brienne was given the opportunity to check in on Jaime. Bronn and Cersei had fallen asleep in front of the fire so when she heard the door to his room open, she ventured into the hall to get an update. Denys curtly informed her that Jaime was resting and that he believed if he made it through the night he would make a full recovery.

Brienne had to see for herself. She stood over Jaime and watched his chest rise and fall. She longed to reach out to him and smooth the unruly lock of hair that had crept across his brow, but she didn’t dare. She lost all sense of time as she kept vigil at his bedside, tears sliding silently down her cheeks without end.

He wouldn’t die. He couldn’t. Not after everything. He had to live. She prayed to the old gods and the new for them to give Jaime Lannister another chance. A chance far away from King’s Landing where the twins would finally be able to build a life together. They could sail to the Free Cities, live as man and wife as he'd always wanted. 

As much as the prospect made Brienne ache, she also experienced genuine yearning at the thought. It would give her peace of mind to know he was out there in the world somewhere, alive, happy, and living the life he’d always dreamed of. It would all be worth it then.

No matter what had happened between them, no matter how it’d hurt her to accept he’d barely felt the tiniest sliver of what she felt for him, the very thought of him dying miserable, believing the very worst of himself, had been unbearable.

He hadn't deserved that. He wasn’t hateful.

In truth, Brienne didn’t think she’d ever met someone who was brimming more with love. It was just a shame that the two main recipients of that love took it for granted. She didn’t doubt his siblings loved him in return, (how could they not?), but from what Jaime had said they both seemed to act as if his undying devotion was only their due. As if it was something to be wielded when useful, and merely tolerated the rest of the time instead of treasured as the priceless gift it was. 

But Jaime had been correct all those years back when he’d told her that people didn’t get to choose who they loved. She hadn’t chosen to love him any more than he had chosen _not_ to love her. It’s just how it was. There was no rhyme or reason to it. She’d been a fool to think that she could earn it, could prove her worth to him or any man. Respect and trust could be built, but love? True passionate love hit men like a lightning bolt, it very rarely _grew on them_.

Brienne may fault Jaime for impulsively following her to her room after the feast, taking her maidenhead when he considered her little more than a warm body on a cold night, but she couldn’t fault him for not reciprocating her feelings. 

Besides, she herself shouldered some of the blame. She'd lived among soldiers most of her adult life and had seen the way men sought out camp followers after battle. Even the most honorable and faithful of men fell prey to such weakness when their blood was up. She should have known when Jaime showed up at her door, drunk and agitated, that she was just a means of chasing oblivion.

And she should have known when he kissed her awake at dawn and touched her with even greater urgency than he had the night before that it wasn’t passion driving his actions, but denial. 

It was a serious lapse in judgment on her part.

She should've turned him away that night, kindly but firmly. Or at the very least turned him away the next morning. If she had, Jaime wouldn’t have felt the need to lie to her to spare her feelings and then felt obliged to keep up the pretense for weeks on end. Bedding her over and over again in a misguided attempt to delude himself into believing he could move on from his sister. 

At least sanity had reasserted itself at long last as well as clarity. There would be no more misunderstandings, no more false hopes. All that mattered now was the continued rise and fall of Jaime’s chest.

 _Live, Jaime, live._

She closed her eyes and swore she could hear his heart beating in time with hers.


	4. Chapter 4

Jaime awakened by late afternoon and they filed into the room to see him.

He was bare from the waist up with bandages covering most of his midsection. Color had returned to his cheeks and he seemed more alert which was a relief. However, the intent way he focused on Brienne as soon as she entered the room made her want to instinctively flee. She felt his gaze like a brand on her skin and cursed her awkward, hulking form. As always, she took up too much space and there was nowhere to hide.

As Jaime lay in bed with Cersei fluttering over him and cooing, his eyes kept searching out Brienne’s. She could practically hear the same questions from yesterday echoing in her ears. 

_What are you doing here? Why would you do this? After everything…why would you come?_

A part of her wanted to shout, “Because I love you as much as you love Cersei! More, in fact.” 

Brienne knew Jaime would scarcely imagine such a thing possible, but it was the truth. He loved his sister to distraction, but at its heart, his was a selfish love. Somehow she doubted he’d have been in such a rush to save Cersei if it was so she could live out the rest of her days with another. If it was so he could deliver her into the arms of her true love, her other half, a man who wasn’t him. But of course she couldn’t say any of that. 

So she just stood there mutely as Cersei hovered solicitously over Jaime, as Bronn leaned against the wall, his eyes darting back and forth from the twins to Brienne with unholy glee.

Jaime’s voice was what convinced Brienne that he was truly on the mend. It was a far cry from the raspy croak she’d heard from him the last time he spoke just before he’d fainted in her arms. He’d regained the strength and crisp enunciation he was known for, authority dripping from his plummy tones once more. His was the carrying voice of a Lannister, of a commander, and it did her heart good to hear it.

After he reassured them that he was alright and should be in condition to travel in a few days, conversation turned to the carnage Daenerys had unleashed on the capital. The loss of life, the sheer scope of destruction was staggering.

Brienne had never been the biggest supporter of the Dragon Queen, but she couldn’t fathom how the woman could’ve heard the bells signaling surrender and then committed such atrocities. It was unconscionable. 

Brienne could see the dark horror lingering in Jaime’s eyes, could see a shadow of the same in Bronn’s, even if grim cynicism blunted the edges of it. 

Cersei, however, was suspiciously clear-eyed as she kept her own counsel. There was even a slight curve to her mouth that suggested she might be pleased by this turn of events. Perhaps she still had her eye on the throne and hoped Daenerys’ display of wanton cruelty would weaken her position. The Targaryen girl certainly earned a lot of enemies in one fell swoop. If her last, remaining dragon were to be subdued, it’d be all too easy to stage a coup.

Ever pragmatic, Bronn’s unblinking gaze locked on the twins. “There is still the matter of payment,” he said without preamble. 

Cersei sniffed. “I believe I paid upfront during our last transaction and you failed to deliver on your end of the deal.”

Bronn grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Ask yourself where you would be if I had. Brotherless and buried under a mound of rubble with your pretty head caved in. No, it’ll come down to the little brother, I’m afraid, to secure me a castle and a bride. As long as he stays in the Dragon Queen’s good graces, he’ll be the Lannister who pays this debt.”

Contempt for Bronn and/or Tyrion darkened Cersei’s features in a way the inferno that'd scorched King's Landing had not. But then she glanced at Brienne and unaccountably brightened. “I have the most brilliant idea. Lady Brienne could be your bride and Evenfall could be your castle,” she proposed with a twinkle in her eye.

Brienne stiffened, her hand involuntarily migrating to her hip to grip her pommel. This was why she’d always avoided highborn ladies at court. They took such delight in publicly tormenting women they deemed lacking in any way. And since it was universally understood Brienne of Tarth was deficient in _every_ way, they positively reveled in ripping her to shreds all while fawning over her ever so politely. Their saccharine cruelty could cut more deeply than any blade.

Bronn smiled regretfully at Brienne. “No disrespect intended, my lady, since I’ve told Pod more than once that I’d happily fuck you any day of the week, but I have my sights set a bit higher than Tarth. I believe Highgarden was on the table when last we spoke.” His smile took a turn for the wicked as he leaned in closer to Brienne. “I mean it, though. If you’re ever feeling lonely, name the time and the place and I’ll be there.”

“You are speaking to a highborn lady. You will show her the respect and courtesy she’s due,” Jaime snarled.

Brienne wasn’t the only one who narrowed her eyes at that. Cersei did, too.

“I notice you called her a lady instead of the Maid of Tarth. Mayhaps you know something we don’t. Does the title no longer apply?” Cersei asked, her voice laced with honeyed venom.

Jaime smiled thinly. “Actually the proper form of address is now Ser Brienne of Tarth, for she is a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Bronn slapped his thigh and grinned.

“That’s right, Tyrion told me all about it. According to him, the Kingslayer knighting the Warrior Maid on the eve of the battle against the dead was the stuff of legends. They’ll write songs about you two.”

Cersei placed her hand on her brother’s cheek. “Oh, Jaime, what a kind gesture. What a good master you were giving your pet such a reward so she could go to her death with a song in her heart.”

Brienne bristled at the way she made it sound as if he'd only been humoring her.

“It wasn’t a kindness,” Jaime said sharply, shifting away so his sister’s hand fell back to her side. “It was only what was right. She was already a knight in all but name. I just made it official.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Bronn announced. “If I save both of your bony backsides, and Tyrion is still in a position to give me what I’m owed, I deserve Highgarden _and_ Ser Brienne. Most noblewomen are so dull. I think you and I could have some fun, my lady.” 

Brienne could only gape as Bronn winked at her before turning to Jaime. “And all your concerns about my ignoble upjumped self being Lord Paramount of the Reach would just vanish into thin air if the most honorable knight in Westeros were my wife. You could be certain she’d keep me on the straight and narrow.”

Jaime looked two seconds away from launching himself at Bronn and reopening his stitches that were the only thing holding him together so Brienne quickly moved between them. “If you could all stop speaking about me as if I weren’t here.”

She turned to Bronn first. “I’d marry Tormund Giantsbane before I would marry you so give it a rest.” Bronn didn’t know the man in question, but he seemed to get the gist. 

Then she turned to Cersei. “Whether I am named Maid or Lady or Ser, my honor does not lie between my legs. It never did.”

Lastly, she turned to Jaime. “Respect and courtesy? Did I hear that correctly?”

Jaime arched a brow. “Tormund Giantsbane? Did I hear _that_ correctly?” he countered.

“Who knows, perhaps he’d _grow on me_ ,” Brienne snapped before spinning on her heel and marching out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! And Happy Hump Day to those who don't!


	5. Chapter 5

By supper, Jaime was mobile again and able to make the short trip to the table to dine with them.

The daughter of the innkeep, Alys, had the unfortunate task of serving them as they made stilted conversation.

She was a natural beauty teetering on the cusp of womanhood with chestnut hair that fell to her waist and big brown eyes. Alys was not polished like a highborn lady would be, but there was a sweetness about her that called to Brienne. A sadness, too, tinged with a hint of desperation that made Brienne feel strangely protective of this girl she’d only just met.

It was clear Alys was infatuated with Jaime. Whenever she neared him, her rosy cheeks grew even rosier and she fluttered her lashes, giggling softly. 

Jaime smiled politely enough in return, but the lines around his eyes deepened as if he were weary. Which was no small wonder. Even as the much-maligned Kingslayer, he must’ve had countless admirers over the years. The never-ending parade of besotted ladies likely became tiresome in short order, especially considering he’d already met the love of his life in the womb. 

And this girl was so young, even younger than his daughter Myrcella had been at her death. Brienne didn’t think youth held much appeal for Jaime anymore. She’d noticed in Winterfell that he often avoided the younger generation if possible as if it hurt to look upon them. Perhaps it reminded him of the death of his three children. Or perhaps he felt so jaded, so far removed from such innocence, that he wanted no part of it.

Youth still held some fascination for Bronn and Cersei, however. Bronn wouldn’t stop ogling the poor girl and Cersei couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from her either. Each time Alys entered the room, Cersei positively seethed with what Brienne could only assume was envy. She kept glaring at the girl, scanning every last inch of her, from her dewy complexion to the soft curves of her maidenly figure.

Fortunately, Alys was so preoccupied with making a good impression on Jaime, and Bronn to a lesser extent, that she remained utterly oblivious to the older woman’s scrutiny.

When Alys bent down to top off Jaime’s drink, she shifted in such a way so as to reveal her ample cleavage to its best advantage. The display didn’t attract the eye of her intended target, but it did draw the undivided attention of two bystanders. Bronn leered at the view whereas Cersei practically snarled. 

Jaime didn’t react at all, merely averted his eyes and met Brienne’s gaze. He looked at her knowingly as if they were sharing some private jest, as if no one else were even in the room. 

The corner of Jaime’s mouth twitched and then he bit his lip, and just like that, her heart was a-gallop.

Brienne swallowed hard and felt her face heat. She was uncomfortably aware that her cheeks would not be flushing the endearing rose that Alys’ had, but a vivid, blotchy scarlet instead. 

The next thing she knew Alys tripped and it was only Brienne’s lightning-quick reflexes that kept her on her feet.

The girl smiled shyly at Brienne as she apologized for her clumsiness before thanking her for her assistance. The incident steadied Brienne’s nerves and she retook her seat with a clearer head.

When Alys swept out of the room, Brienne noted Bronn was practically drooling and elbowed him in the ribs. “No. She’s a child,” she said firmly. 

He shrugged. “She’s eight-and-ten if she’s a day. Hardly a child.” 

“Nonsense. She looks closer to four-and-ten. I will geld you if you try anything with her.”

Cersei swirled her goblet languidly, pursing lips stained red with wine. “I notice you’ve neglected to deliver any of your threats to my dear brother,” she said to Brienne, “when it’s he the foolish girl has set her sights on. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Brienne knows the girl is safe from my attentions,” Jaime smoothly interjected. “She knows I would only bed a woman for love, never for sport.”

Brienne bit her tongue. The initial flicker of hope his assertion kindled died almost as quickly as it sparked. 

Obviously, Jaime was lying. 

He may not have followed Brienne to her room that night for ‘sport,’ but neither had it been for love. When he’d left Winterfell, he’d betrayed his distinct lack of regard for her quite decisively. She could only assume he believed himself to be indebted to her for saving his sister’s life so he now felt compelled to soothe the sting of his rejection. Better that he intimate that she’d captured a part of his heart than none of it at all. 

But she wasn’t a fool. And lies, no matter how well-intended, brought her no comfort. In fact, such appeasement rather devastated her. A lump formed in her throat at the falsehood that she’d ever been important enough to him to have ever even rated as a consolation prize. 

She’d take his apathy over his pity any day of the week.

Brienne put it out of her mind, ignoring the pointed look Jaime was sending her and turned back to Bronn. “Whatever illicit activities your friend is involved in appears to be barely keeping his family afloat. Her dress is tattered and she’s looking at you two as if you’re her ticket out of here. But you’re not planning to take her to wife, are you?”

“No, but I could make it worth her while. Pay a little extra for the pleasure of her company,” he said, patting his pouch of coin. “I thought you’d be all about female empowerment. Using what the gods have given her to get ahead. Alys is flowered. She can choose freely whom to bed.” 

“If she’s offering her body for coin, how much choice is involved, would you say?” she asked tartly. 

Cersei laughed, a sharp, mocking trill. “How perfectly naïve, Lady Brienne. As if choice enters into the equation for most women. But with your sword and mannish looks, I suppose you’ve never had to fear that form of brutality. Then again, desperate men will do desperate things…”

It was the hint of genuine fury in Cersei’s pinched expression, the brittle tone that indicated she spoke from personal experience, that made Brienne fleetingly sympathize with her. 

“I’ve come close,” she said solemnly, her eyes going unerringly to Jaime’s. “But I was lucky.”

His hand tightened on his fork. “You weren’t _lucky_ ,” Jaime spat. “Getting taken captive, tied up, and almost raped is not lucky.” 

“No, I agree with your lady knight. She was indeed fortunate. More fortunate than most women. To only have _come close_ to having her will stripped away from her in such a manner. I can’t think of another woman I’ve known in all my life who could say the same.” Cersei tilted her head in consideration. “Although eventually the Evenstar will die and then you will have to wed whatever brutish whoreson will have you, let him paw at you, rut away atop you night after night after night. So it would seem someday you will know _exactly _what’s it’s like to be a woman in this world, Ser Brienne.”__

____

____

Jaime’s fork clattered loudly against his plate as Brienne’s gaze dropped to her lap. Her hand curled into a fist and she tried to ground herself by focusing on the way her nails dug painfully into her palm.

Jaime stood and moved to put another log on the fire. “Don’t mind me, just being diligent and responsible. After all, winter is still here,” he said blithely, but his sister wasn’t that easily distracted. Not when she’d only just begun to toy with her prey, prodding its soft underbelly. 

“Speaking of your future domestic bliss, I met an old suitor of yours recently. I confess Jaime has told me so little about you, I felt like I knew you not at all, so this conversation was most illuminating. I was informed you were betrothed _thrice_ already…” Cersei said with audible wonder as if it was the most delicious morsel of gossip imaginable.

As Jaime took his seat once more, Brienne could sense his piercing gaze. And sure enough, when she glanced across the table it was to see him looking personally aggrieved as if she’d purposely withheld information that was due him.

“Hmm, what was his name again?” Cersei continued scathingly, her eyes glittering with malice. “Oh yes, Ser Ronnet Connington. He said he knew you quite well. Brienne the Beauty, he called you. He told me the most amusing story about you and a rose…”

Brienne flinched. She couldn’t help it even though she’d been bracing herself for this ever since Cersei started down this path.

She wished she hadn’t shed her blue armor before supper. When she was encased in its protection, she always felt untouchable, even in battles of wits such as this where her defeat was all but certain. But no, right then her vulnerability was on full display, the thin linen of her tunic no proper shield against imminent humiliation. She could feel her shoulders hunching, her body curling in on itself to prepare for the blow that was about to land.

Jaime’s foot was suddenly on top of hers under the table, pressing lightly. He turned to his sister with a deceptively mild look. “That’s hardly news-worthy. You can’t really claim to be highborn if you haven't had a betrothal or two fall through. If you want to hear a juicy story about Brienne of Tarth, I have a far better one.”

He proceeded to regale them all with the story of her killing the Stark men in the woods. “She took them on singlehandedly, wiped their sniggering smirks clean off their faces.” He seemed to relish the part where she’d repeated the ringleader’s words back to him. “'Two quick deaths,’ Lady Brienne said before leisurely finishing him off. It was a sight to behold!” he declared with feeling.

Jaime was the very picture of the reminiscing soldier, his tongue loosened by ale, only too eager to trade war stories, but Brienne could see the strain around his eyes. He was putting on a mummer’s show, and all for her benefit.

Brienne couldn’t bring herself to glance beside him to see if he’d successfully diverted his sister’s withering scorn. But if nothing else, he'd succeeded in restoring Brienne's posture. At least her shoulders were no longer up around her ears.

Bronn seemed to appreciate the turn the conversation had taken. He laughed in all the right places and slung his arm around the back of Brienne’s chair. “The tale I want to hear about is the one where you fought a bear. They say you had no sword and killed it with your bare hands.”

“That’s not how it was,” Brienne said curtly. At least he hadn’t heard the sordid version where she was purportedly naked because he certainly would have led with that it if he had.

Jaime leaned back and smiled as if almost being mauled to death by a bear was a fond memory. “Well, the thing you need to know about all that is that Brienne only had herself to blame. We would never have been taken by the Bloody Mummers if not for her. I told her that beady-eyed peasant recognized me and if she’d been a little less rigid about honor, she would’ve slain him then. But no, she showed him mercy and it bit us in the ass.”

Fully aware he was trying to get a rise out of her, Brienne still couldn't refrain from taking the bait. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “You’re the one who started the swordfight out in the open on the middle of the bridge and made such a racket that of course Locke and his men were drawn to the commotion. _You’re_ the reason we were taken hostage.”

Jaime waved his hand in a dismissive fashion. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Anyway, I got my hand chopped off, Brienne refused to let me die, I almost drowned in a tub, Roose Bolton was a cunt...All of which led to Brienne being pushed into a bear pit armed with only a bloody wooden sword to defend herself. Fucking Locke.”

He took liberties with what came next, embellishing her heroism and downplaying his own. “After she was pulled out, she turned around and had the men hold her legs so she could pull me up, too,” he concluded with awe as if her returning the favor was somehow more impressive than him jumping into the bear pit to save her in the first place.

“This all sounds eerily familiar. I can do one better. A fire-breathing dragon trumps a bear any day,” Bronn announced and then relayed the story of how Jaime came to charge Drogon. “I swear the idiot has a death wish. At the last possible second, I yanked him off his horse and we hurtled into the river.”

This was the first Brienne had heard of it and she forgot herself enough to yell at him as if he was hers, as if she had the right to reprimand him for putting his life at risk like that. “What were you thinking? Seven hells, Jaime, a dragon? You’re damn lucky you weren’t burned to a crisp that day!” she snapped, banging her fist onto the table for emphasis.

Jaime didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish. Instead he defended his lunacy as if it were the only sensible course of action.

Before it could get even more heated, Bronn redirected the conversation to the Battle of Winterfell. Jaime recounted some of the more memorable moments from the Long Night, but with decidedly less gusto. 

Brienne understood his grim solemnity all too well. Not enough time had passed yet to put the horrors visited upon them that night in perspective, let alone to turn them into thrilling tales for others’ entertainment.

She still had nightmares featuring the relentless swarm of the dead, wave after wave of them coming without end. In the grips of despair, she'd recall the visceral helplessness she’d felt, the bone-deep fatigue, the ever-growing certainty that this was a war that couldn’t be won. 

Even if she lived to be old and grey, Brienne doubted she’d ever look back on that night and count the battle among her glory days.

Jaime trailed off as he met Brienne's similarly anguished gaze, their eye contact lingering longer than was wise.

“Speaking of interesting tales,” Cersei purred, “Ser Brienne, have you heard the one about my dear brother pushing an innocent Stark child out of a window and crippling him for life?”

Jaime didn’t flinch or react in any obvious way, but it was like a door slammed shut as his gaze shuttered and his face went blank. Cersei studied Brienne closely, a glint of anticipation gleaming in her eye. She was clearly waiting for horror and betrayal to darken her features. 

But Brienne simply sat there blinking, utterly unmoored.

 _This was new_.

It was one thing for Cersei to aim to wound Brienne for her own amusement, but to wield her brother’s greatest shame as her weapon of choice was unfathomable. Jaime was Cersei’s beloved, wasn’t he? The other half of her soul. But if that were true, why would she speak of him so? 

Brienne had heard frightful stories from Sansa of the queen’s malice, but never in her wildest imagination would she have guessed that Cersei would treat her own twin thus. She’d always just assumed that intense familial devotion ran in the Lannister family and that his sister’s unspeakable viciousness was only ever directed outward, never inward at her own kin. That the Cersei the world knew was not the one Jaime adored.

Brienne was abruptly reminded of Jaime’s last words to her before he left Winterfell. He had been half right. 

This sister of his…she was truly _hateful_.

“Yes. He said as much the day I met him. He proudly rattled off _all_ his worst sins during our first meeting,” Brienne said calmly. “But it’s funny you should bring up Bran Stark…he’s actually the reason I’m here. He’s the one who warned me of your fates if I didn’t intervene.” 

Bronn laughed, seeming all too amused by the show. “How would some crippled kid all the way up in the North know what was going to happen?”

Brienne shifted uneasily. “He…he knows things. It’s difficult to explain.”

Honestly, she didn’t like to think on it. The timing of it all unsettled her. She didn’t want to question why the Stark boy had only shared his knowledge of what was to come after it was too late to stop the massacre from happening. 

She didn’t want to think of how she'd been unable to sleep the night before he'd delivered his prophesy. Of how she'd wandered through the godswood, fallen asleep under the heart tree, and dreamt of the Lannister twins locked in a mournful embrace as the Red Keep collapsed on top of them… 

Bronn laughed again. “He knows things, you say? He must’ve gotten on well with Tyrion then.”

Jaime didn’t even crack a smile at that. He still appeared a million miles away. Cersei, however, remained fixed on Brienne, positively crackling with malevolence. 

“How does an honorable woman such as yourself conceive of such evil?” she asked in a conversational tone. “It’s so despicable, so unforgivable what my brother did, isn’t it? Attempting to murder a child in cold blood. I’m shocked you would even tolerate his presence, let alone risk your life for his. How do you reconcile his utter depravity with your continued good opinion of him? Or is it just that you are so easily swayed by a pretty face?”

Brienne traced the venomous curl of Cersei’s smirk, committing it to memory. This right here was Cersei Lannister’s true face and she marveled that it was even uglier than the one Brienne saw in the looking glass each day. 

Brienne turned to Jaime then and she could tell he’d returned from wherever he’d gone. He no longer looked blank, so much as cornered. Whether he was a wary dog waiting to be kicked or a feral one on the verge of ripping out the throat of its enemy, she couldn’t say. That was the thing about cornered beasts…they could be wildly unpredictable, especially when wounded. They were as apt to go on the attack as they were to cower.

“Most men would do monstrous things to protect their loved ones,” Brienne said steadily.

“Would you?” Cersei pressed, idly circling her fingertip over the rim of her goblet.

“Some would say I am presently doing just that.” _Lady Sansa, for one_ , she thought. 

Jaime inhaled sharply at that, but Brienne refused to tiptoe around the truth. It’s not like her love for him was any great secret to any of those seated at the table. 

Brienne hadn’t arrived in King’s Landing early enough to thwart Daenerys even if she’d had the first idea of how she might’ve managed it. She’d only had the presence of mind to tell Tyrion to free as many of the people trapped inside the city’s walls as he could, but it wasn’t the same as seeing to it herself the way a true knight would have done. 

Dereliction of duty would fall under the heading of monstrous things, she had no doubt. There'd been innocents deserving of her help and she'd forsaken them to rescue the Lannisters.

Brienne had put love before duty. Selfishly assigned more worth to a life she held dear than to that of others. What was that expression? Love is the death of duty. And yet she couldn’t have done anything else. 

Brienne latched onto Jaime’s gaze and she ached at the thought that they would part ways again shortly. And this time, for good. Before that happened, she was suddenly desperate for him to know that in spite of how he’d broken her heart, she hadn’t agreed with him when he’d named himself wicked and worthless. 

“I know the very best and the very worst of Ser Jaime Lannister,” she said slowly so that each word carried weight, “and I still judge him to be the finest man I have ever known. Does that answer your question, my lady?”

Cersei grimaced, her face puckering as if she’d tasted something foul. Bronn snickered under his breath.

And Jaime…Jaime just kept staring at her as if he’d never seen her like before.


	6. Chapter 6

Matters only grew more uncomfortable when the four of them were forced to hole up in incredibly close quarters for the night. 

Originally, Brienne had figured she’d sleep in front of the hearth, but once she learned that that’s where Alys usually slept when the guest room was occupied, she thought better of it.

Bronn had had the same idea and none of her qualms about infringing on the girl’s privacy so Brienne had resorted to threats to lead him away. As if she’d trust him alone with Alys for the night. He’d surely mount the poor girl before Brienne had even had the chance to lay out her bedroll in the room upstairs. 

Upon being reminded that the cramped room only boasted two small beds, however, Brienne reconsidered her options. Perhaps Alys would be amenable to letting her claim a stretch of the floor. Anything to spare herself the sight of the Lannister twins bedding down together. But then Brienne remembered the disquieting way Alys had looked at her before they parted company.

Brienne had surreptitiously handed Alys extra coin after supper, thanking her for being so attentive and serving them so diligently that night. Alys had expressed gratitude, but a hint of wistfulness had lingered that made Brienne more convinced than ever that she was more interested in a way out of this life than monetary compensation.

Her suspicions were further aroused when Alys bade them all good night. Jaime and Bronn weren’t the only ones who'd earned a come-hither look from her. Brienne did, too. Alys’ gaze had been heated, an invitation of sorts, and it had saddened Brienne to see it. The girl must be really desperate if she was willing to stoop to seducing a hideous lady knight for the chance at a new life.

In any case, Brienne didn’t want to give Alys the wrong impression and awaken in the middle of the night to find the girl sneaking into her bedroll. 

Unsurprisingly, Cersei was quick to claim one of the beds for her own. Jaime insisted Brienne take the other out of some misplaced sense of chivalry, but naturally, she refused.

“No, you take it. You’re still injured. You need your rest,” she argued.

“You’re welcome to offer it to me, cunt. But I’ll warn you right now, I won’t turn it down. I don’t care if you are a wounded cripple,” Bronn said with an unapologetic shrug.

“You could always share with me, dear brother. The beds are quite narrow, but we could squeeze in tight and huddle together the way we used to when we were children.”

Brienne shuddered at the undeniably sensual timbre of her voice.

Fortunately, Jaime didn’t take her up on her offer. He studied his sister with an unsmiling stare then strode to the other bed.

When Cersei asked Jaime in the same coy, melodic tone to help unfasten the back of her dress, Brienne turned away to give them their privacy and Bronn huffed a laugh.

She busied herself with laying out her bedroll on the floor in the opposite corner Bronn had staked out for himself. 

“Here, let me return the favor. Don’t be shy,” Cersei teased her brother, and then there was the telltale rustle of clothing.

Brienne kept her gaze averted, but imagined Cersei’s small, delicate hands undoing the laces at Jaime’s throat, slipping under his linen tunic to help pull it off in a cruel parody of the night that had changed the course of her life. 

She lowered herself to the floor with a wince and was relieved when she heard footsteps and then the creak of two separate beds in use. She glanced over to see that both twins had taken a seat, Cersei perched at the foot of her bed while Jaime was propped up against his pillows. Brienne was preparing to roll onto her side away from them and feign sleep when Cersei spoke.

“What’s the plan now? I’m assuming you’ll go scurrying back to the Imp for your reward,” she said, sparing a sneer for Bronn before turning to Brienne. “As for you, will you be joining us on our voyage to Pentos? Just think of how _cozy_ it’ll be the three of us below decks sharing a cabin for days on end. How people will talk…”

“No,” Brienne said firmly, “I’ll wait to ensure you make it aboard the ship safely and then continue on my way.” 

“Will you return to Winterfell then?” Jaime asked in a flurry of words, as if he knew it wasn’t his place to ask, but the question had been torn from him without his permission.

“No. Lady Sansa released me from her service.” 

That was the diplomatic way of describing what had happened. It wasn’t even what Lady Sansa had said, but _how_ she’d said it that had stung so deeply. Brienne wouldn’t soon forget her lady’s look of cold disapproval. Her icy stare had chilled her to the bone. 

There’d been no understanding there, no compassion, no forgiveness to be found. She’d made it plain that she viewed Brienne’s intended mission as a betrayal, the act of a traitor. 

“You can’t serve both the Lannisters and the Starks. You must choose,” Lady Sansa had said. “Will you break faith with us, Ser?” 

Brienne had sensed that even had she claimed temporary insanity and reasserted her loyalty to House Stark, it would’ve been too late for that. Trust had already been lost and going forward there’d always have been a shadow of doubt that kept Brienne at a remove from her lady’s confidences.

“I do no such thing,” Brienne had replied with feeling. “I have always been honest with you, my lady, have I not? That is why I stand before you and have informed you of the course of action I feel compelled to take. I ask that you release me from my vows, but I remain your loyal servant and will abide by your wishes if you cannot find it within yourself to permit it.”

Brienne had no illusions that if not for Bran whispering in his sister’s ear, she might well have been hanged for her faithlessness. She would never know why Bran had warned her of the future or why he urged his sister to let her go, but if not for him, none of the events of the last day would’ve been possible. 

When Lady Sansa had finally released Brienne, she’d stated unequivocally that the cost of her freedom was that she could never return to Winterfell. She’d paused just long enough after saying her piece that Brienne could tell she was giving her one last opportunity to come to her senses and throw herself on her lady’s mercy. Brienne had merely nodded and turned away, her heart in her throat.

Brienne could see the grim understanding dawn on Jaime’s face of what her choice had cost her. “What about Tarth?” he asked, his eyes and voice softening in a way that made her squirm.

“I fear it will not be safe to return home. If the Dragon Queen discovers my role in your escape from the city, the Sapphire Isle will be the first place she’d look. I don’t want to cause even more trouble for my father. I’ll have to think on it.” 

She liked the idea of living as a hedge knight for a while. Maybe she’d roam the Riverlands and perform good deeds, have adventures.

Cersei smirked. “Of course my little dove wouldn’t welcome you back with open arms,” she said snidely. “A sworn sword who would come to the aid of her lady’s worst enemy is not to be trusted. I had you pegged from the beginning, did I not? You flit from one camp to the next, serving whichever lord or lady strikes your fancy. Your fatal flaw is that you lack constancy.”

Brienne met her gaze squarely. “That sounds like an accurate depiction of me. Undoubtedly.”

Both Jaime and Bronn snorted at that. 

“Just as it is not in doubt that when the dust settles, I would stake everything I am on that _little dove_ being crowned Queen in the North,” Brienne continued coolly. “And if the Dragon Queen falters, Lady Sansa may yet rule the Seven Kingdoms when all is said and done. Whereas you’ll be toiling away in the Free Cities barely scraping by.”

Cersei’s jaw dropped for one satisfying moment before she shut her mouth with an audible click. Her eyes narrowed to slits. "I wouldn't be so sure of that," she finally said, sending a chill down Brienne's spine.

Brienne felt Jaime’s gaze on her long after she’d rolled onto her side, turning her back on this complete and utter farce of a day.

*****

Brienne woke with a start in the middle of the night. She instinctively reached for Oathkeeper which she’d tucked between her bedroll and the wall in case of emergency, but she let her hand drop away from the blade when she pinpointed the source of her disrupted sleep.

Jaime was sitting up in bed, breathing hard. It was a familiar scene. During the time they’d shared a room in Winterfell, nightmares had been a common enough occurrence for the pair of them. It was rare that a night passed without one of them bolting upright in bed and shaking apart with fright.

Brienne had to stop herself from going to him and comforting him the way she had before when his demons found him in the dead of night. 

It was too dim to read his expression from that distance, but she could tell Jaime had turned his head to look at her. She should’ve rolled back over, but instead she felt frozen, unable to look away. When he got out of bed and started shuffling toward her, she propped herself up on her elbows.

Jaime crouched down at her side. “Swap places with me. Take the bed,” he said in a hushed tone, mindful of not waking Bronn or Cersei. Not that either seemed in danger of waking any time soon. Bronn was snoring away in the opposite corner of the room, dead to the world, and Cersei hadn’t stirred at all.

“No. You keep it, you’re still recovering. I’m fine on the floor,” she insisted in an equally soft voice.

“The day before yesterday you shoveled your weight in rock several times over, a feat no other mere mortal could’ve managed in the time you did. You rowed us to safety as if the Stranger was after us. And then you had to haul me up onto a horse and later carry me in here when I was unconscious. And on top of all that, Bronn told me you didn't sleep a wink last night. You need to rest in a proper bed.”

“None of that compares to having been brutally stabbed and almost dying,” Brienne hissed.

Jaime sighed. “Why do you always have to be so stubborn? It’s only another couple hours until dawn. Just…humor me, Brienne.”

She grumbled, but gave a jerky nod and rose to stand. Jaime stood, too, and took a step closer to her. She wasn’t surprised when he reached out and cupped the nape of her neck. Skin to skin contact had always been the way he grounded himself after a nightmare, the shared touch a reminder that it had just been a dream and that this was reality. 

She bit her lip at the sensation. She wished she could be unmoved by his touch or at least accept it in the manner in which it was intended, as a simple gesture of comfort between friends. Instead her heart was pounding as if she’d just finished sparring.

He leaned in so close that she could feel the warm puffs of his breath on her face. “Thank you. For everything,” he whispered and then withdrew.

And just like that, she felt colder than ever, like a cloud had passed over the sun.

The flash of gold as she swept by him puzzled her. Why hadn’t he taken off his golden hand before going to bed? He’d never once kept it on while sleeping in Winterfell with her. She almost said something before she remembered it was none of her business.

The bed was still warm from his body and she couldn’t resist turning her face into the pillow so she could breathe in his familiar scent. She briefly entertained the thought of Jaime nestling in her bedroll in a similar manner then cursed her stupidity. Of course he wouldn’t do such a thing.

When Cersei’s eyes opened just a sliver to gleam at her from the next bed over, Brienne turned away to stare at the wall.


	7. Chapter 7

Brienne hadn’t thought she’d sleep a wink, but she must have done because the next time she stirred, morning light was streaming into the room.

She could hear the Lannister twins speaking softly to each other behind her. Fortunately, she was still facing the wall so they weren’t aware she had awoken. 

She didn’t want to eavesdrop, but she also was loathe to draw their attention to her, especially after the harsh words that had been exchanged between she and Cersei last night. She was hoping if she just waited a little longer and kept feigning sleep, they’d slip out of the room. She could really use a chance to compose herself in private before spending another day in their company.

She heard Cersei rise from the bed and then Brienne realized she could see their shadows on the wall as the slender shadow gracefully glided up to the taller, broader one. She watched as Cersei leaned in for a kiss and Jaime jerked backward before their shadow lips could connect.

The rejection was not as gratifying as she would’ve expected. Brienne would like to think she knew Jaime well enough to know he'd never kiss another woman, even his beloved sister, in the same room that she was sleeping. His honor wouldn't allow it.

Waiting them out was no longer an option. If she didn’t interrupt them now, she’d have to witness a conversation she just didn’t have the heart to hear. She couldn’t bear to listen to Jaime scramble for an excuse for his reticence and she couldn’t bear to listen to Cersei coyly taunt him about his shyness like she had the night before when she’d undressed him. 

Brienne made a big production of yawning and stretching, the bed creaking under her as she sat up. The twins went blessedly silent behind her as she bent down and started pulling on her boots.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the cruel edge of Cersei’s smirk. 

“Don’t mind your beast,” she cooed to Jaime, sauntering over to him and drawing him into her embrace. “With how _close_ you two are, surely you’ve told her the tale of our star-crossed love. Isn’t this what you always wanted for us? To not have to hide? To love me as you do out in the open for all to see?”

Brienne flushed and leapt to her feet. “I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, turning away to make a hasty exit.

“Wait!” Jaime almost shouted as he disentangled himself from Cersei’s clutches. “Breakfast is about to be served. We shouldn’t spurn their hospitality. Wouldn’t want to offend the people who took us in, would we. Besides, Bronn is already downstairs. If left to his own devices, he’s liable to eat every last morsel before we ever take a seat. Come, Brienne, let’s leave my sister to get dressed.”

Brienne didn’t need to glance at Cersei to know she’d be apoplectic with rage just then. She was positive that in spite of what he'd said, Jaime would linger behind. Be drawn into an argument that would lead to the passionate kiss Brienne had deprived them of, but shockingly, he followed her out the door without another word to his sister.

They made their way down the stairs in tense silence. Their elbows brushed once and Brienne flinched so hard she almost tripped. Jaime reached out to steady her as if his touch hadn’t been the cause of her instability in the first place. She shrugged him off and marched ahead of him.

*****

Bronn greeted Jaime and Brienne with an obnoxious waggle of his brows as if the pair of them happening to arrive at the same time was some scandalous affair.

Eager to get away, Brienne offered to look for Alys when Jeyne announced the girl should have already returned from gathering herbs.

She didn’t have to look far. She’d barely taken two steps out the door before Alys emerged from the woods with a basket under one arm. Brienne wasn’t ready to go back in just yet and asked if the girl wouldn’t mind sitting with her for a minute.

Alys didn’t mind. She was as chatty as Pod, and nearly as likable. With great rapidity, she told Brienne the story of her life, short and not-so-sweet. It turned out she was an orphan. Alys’ mother had died giving birth to her and the bloody flux had killed her father three years back. Denys and Jeyne had taken her in since her father had done business with them. 

Brienne cynically wondered if they’d seen a comely child whose smile and charms might be of use to them in the future once she’d flowered. Bronn likely wasn’t the first unsavory character who’d been willing to drop more coin at their ‘inn’ for the pleasure of her company. 

To be cooped up in this isolated cottage with only the occasional visitor to break up the tedium would be bad enough, but for that particular purpose? It was easy to see why Alys wasn’t so keen on her guardians and why she was so desperate to escape.

When Alys drifted off toward the kitchen to deliver the herbs, Brienne reluctantly traversed the length of the hallway, resigned to enduring a meal fraught with tension. The door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar, just enough that when she went to open it, she could plainly hear Bronn’s lewd challenge to Jaime.

“So who was the better fuck?”

Brienne jumped back a step as if she’d been scalded. The way her skin instantly burned from head to toe, she might as well have been.

“Shut your mouth, Bronn, before I shut it for you.”

“Ooh, touchy. But come on, who else are you gonna tell? I was the one there all that time, the one at your side as you journeyed from sister-fucker to knight-fucker. On the one hand, we have the golden lioness, sharp claws and sharper teeth. Beautiful, yet deadly with more than a glint of madness in those wildfire eyes. On the other stump, we have the most knightliest of knights who I’m guessing is more the bashful maiden between the sheets.”

Brienne wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. She knew she should just retreat, back away as fast as her legs would carry her so she wouldn’t have to hear this filth. Hear Jaime’s inevitable response. But something kept her rooted to the spot. 

“I used to imagine her beating you with her sword before riding you until you whinnied,” Bronn continued, “but then I spent some time with her and had to adjust my thinking. This is how I picture it now - correct me if I’m wrong - you’ve got her splayed out on a soft bed, her big blue eyes stare up at you with the innocence and trust of a newborn babe, her long fuckin’ legs wrap around your waist, a rosy blush spreads across her skin…I wonder how far down does it go, exactly?”

“I will run you through,” Jaime said in his deadliest voice. It was quietly menacing, the voice of one who didn’t make idle threats.

Bronn laughed unrepentantly, but at least halted his assessment of her. “So which is it, the fuck of your life? Given the choice, do you reach for the golden hand or the sword that _keeps oaths_?”

“You already know, you bloody cunt.”

“Aye, I do, but do they?”

Brienne retraced her steps and then loudly banged the door open so they were alerted to her presence and this distasteful subject could die a quick death. The one good thing about Bronn’s lecherous depiction of her was that she'd been so horrorstruck that all color had drained from her in response so she didn’t have a telltale blush to let on she’d overheard the entire conversation. 

Bronn smiled at her broadly in welcome as if he hadn’t just been blatantly disrespecting her. Jaime at least had the decency to shift around uneasily in his seat and avoid her eye. There was even a slight flush to his cheeks. It was the first Brienne had ever seen of it. She hadn’t thought Jaime Lannister capable of blushing, especially not out of embarrassment…or shame.

It settled her a bit to know that he was experiencing some discomfort, too, at the awkward situation they found themselves in. She knew his discomfort couldn’t compare to hers. Why should it? But at least he cared enough about her, respected her enough, to feel a little bad about toying with her affections in such a way.

Bronn had laid it all out so baldly that it was probably the first time Jaime had even grappled with what he had done. Before that, he’d likely framed their interlude in Winterfell as a bout of madness, a fever dream brought on by frigid weather and the euphoria of winning an unwinnable war, something that existed outside of space and time. Not based in reality like what he had with his sister. 

By comparing the two women he'd bedded, Bronn had forced Jaime to acknowledge that, like it or not, he had broken his moral code. 

He’d always prided himself on his fidelity. That was why Brienne had assumed it meant something when he came to her bed that night. She hadn’t believed he would do so if he’d still been in love with his sister. But she hadn’t accounted for self-denial and the ways in which it could drive people to twist themselves into knots to pretend something was true that wasn’t and vice versa.

He must feel such immense shame that he betrayed Cersei. And a smaller amount of shame that he’d mistreated one of the only friends he had in the process. She suspected that’s what the flush on his face was about. Bronn’s comparison had made a mockery of Brienne by jesting that there’d ever been a choice at all. And after Harrenhal, Jaime had greatly misliked anyone laughing at Brienne.

The dark irony was that she hadn’t been an object of ridicule for years. She’d earned respect and acceptance in the North. And then Jaime had come along and stripped that all away, turning her back into a joke. 

Did it never occur to Jaime what would happen to her good name when he left Winterfell to return to his sister? After she had publicly vouched for him and they’d shared a bed for weeks? But what were her feelings, her reputation, her honor in comparison to Cersei’s life, really?

Brienne recalled the handful of days that had passed between Jaime’s departure and her own from Winterfell. They had been days without color or warmth. Pod had been the only person who hadn’t looked upon her with scorn, pity, or disappointment. Even if she hadn’t decided to go after Jaime, she knew now she never could have stayed. The shame would have killed her.

So no, she didn’t want an apology or for Jaime to torture himself indefinitely over what he’d done, but neither did she want to just fade into obscurity as if she’d never existed. Vanish like the mistake she had been.

It was Cersei’s arrival at the table that disrupted Brienne's increasingly grim thoughts, and for that she was grateful. But her gratitude didn’t last long.

If she'd thought Cersei had been hostile yesterday, it was nothing compared to today. She was a ball of fury and no one escaped her wrath. 

She seemed to take great pleasure in casting aspersions, snapping one disparaging remark after another. She spouted off on a wide range of topics including the less than ideal accommodations, the lumpy bed that’d given her a crick in her neck, Jeyne’s dismal cooking, Alys’ messy updo that would’ve had her laughed out of court, the mysterious stench coming from Bronn that somehow nobody except her could smell, and Brienne’s boorish manners. 

Apparently she was putting Cersei off her food by her uncanny resemblance to ‘a cow chewing cud.’ Brienne was willing to concede that her big mournful eyes might bring to mind those of a bovine, but she took umbrage at the insinuation that she was uncouth in any way. After all, her septa had drummed perfect table manners into her at a young age (if she couldn’t look ladylike, she would at least act as polite and proper as possible) which meant she'd never be caught dead chewing her food with her mouth open.

Cersei’s favorite target, however, was her own brother. She went off on a tirade that picked apart every aspect of Jaime’s appearance…his beard, his nondescript clothing (never mind that wearing gold and crimson finery would not be the cleverest idea right now while they were trying to evade capture), the streaks of silver at his temples, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Winterfell aged you, brother. We scarcely look anything alike anymore. Without your golden hand, you could be mistaken for a bloody Stark.”

Brienne could only assume that Jaime’s refusal to play along upstairs had set her off. Cersei was aware her brother had given up his bed for Brienne last night so she’d wanted to put her in her place, lest the besotted sow misconstrue his kind gesture for something more. But he hadn’t joined in and now Cersei was frothing at the mouth, hell-bent on retaliation.

After Cersei finished nagging him about his _haggard_ appearance, she moved onto demanding answers for why he had taken so long to return.

“If you’d just returned sooner, everything would be different. The dragon bitch's army beat you back to King's Landing by a wide margin. It beggars belief that a man traveling alone on horseback couldn't overtake the plodding march of an army south. Unless he didn't leave Winterfell until _weeks_ after the army did. What kept you?”

"He was captured by Daenerys' men and held captive until his brother freed him," Brienne reminded her. It was the truth, chronologically speaking, even if it omitted his belated departure from the North.

Cersei sniffed at that as if imprisonment wasn't a valid enough reason for his delay.

"Perhaps I should have asked the Targaryen girl for a ride. I'd have made good time on the back of a dragon," Jaime quipped. 

Cersei scowled at him and then committed to a new line of attack. And then another. And then another after that.

Jaime deftly fielded his sister's criticism as if he were used to the barrage. He thrust and parried, landing his own blows and drawing blood on a couple of occasions with his own cutting remarks, but it didn’t look like his heart was in it. There was that same forced nonchalance in his posture as he leaned back in his chair and affected an air of wry amusement. 

Out of self-preservation, Brienne had gone into a daze, blocking out as much of the vitriol spilling from Cersei’s lips as she could. The sound of blood rushing in her ears thankfully muffled a lot of her diatribe. What did penetrate her fog set her teeth on edge. 

Brienne was beginning to feel like she’d been taken hostage and must break free at any cost. She’d honestly felt less trapped and willing to end it all with the Bloody Mummers than she did now at this thrice-damned table.

By the time she swallowed her last mouthful of porridge, Brienne was all too eager to accept Bronn’s invitation to go out back and spar. She literally jumped at the chance, bolting to her feet with alacrity before he could change his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

They barely made it to the small clearing located a short distance from the cottage before steel clashed against steel. 

Once, she would’ve called the sellsword’s fighting style dishonorable, but right then it was just what she needed. He kept her on her toes and came at her without mercy even though it was not tourney swords they wielded. 

Bronn was a worthy opponent so she held nothing back as she vented her frustration and fury and sheer bewilderment. 

She let her imagination run riot as she rained down blows and fought to block his. Untangling the mess of knots her mind was in proved far more challenging than any spar. 

Brienne was still hurt and angry, but above all, she was confused. Completely and utterly confused.

Whatever bond she’d previously envisioned the Lannister twins shared, it wasn’t this. 

She’d expected familiarity, ease, a synchronicity of spirit that gave weight to the fanciful notion that they were one soul in two bodies, but none of that had been on display so far.

Things had been visibly strained between them. 

Brienne knew that the twins hadn’t been on the best of terms when Jaime left King’s Landing to go fight in the North, but she’d assumed their combined relief and joy at having survived and having been reunited once more would supersede all else.

She’d been wrong.

Their dynamic was so strange that if Brienne didn’t know better, she would think they loved each other not at all. Seven hells, they didn’t behave like they even _liked_ each other. 

If they had been in the capital and Cersei had still been queen, she would’ve convinced herself their coolness toward one another was an act. An illusion to keep rumors at bay. But they were in hiding and Cersei had gone out of her way to ensure Brienne was well aware of the true nature of their relationship.

The few times Cersei _had_ shown Jaime affection the past couple days, her gaze had strayed to Brienne just before or just afterward as if she was performing for an audience. Cersei may not have viewed her as a viable romantic rival for her brother’s love, but she certainly acted like she was a nuisance who needed to be swatted away. So yes, there was some possessiveness there, to be sure, but nothing substantive beyond that that Brienne could see. It was puzzling in the extreme.

She supposed the verbal sparring might be considered foreplay, but there was none of the heat she would’ve associated with that. She surely wouldn’t characterize the back and forth from that morning as lively banter or even friendly bickering, it had come across more like petty sniping. Cersei had exuded bitterness and resentment, and Jaime had just seemed tired.

Brienne thought she’d also detected a hint of embarrassment from him. 

At first she’d feared she was the cause of it. His two worlds had collided, the woman he'd chosen and the woman he'd discarded. Did seeing the marked contrast between them standing side by side fill him with shame? Make him want to throw a shroud over Brienne so his golden twin would be spared the sight of her? 

But then she recognized the pattern for what it was, how his eyes would dart to hers after his sister said something particularly appalling, and she began to suspect it was the other way around. 

He was dreading _Brienne’s_ judgment.

Why he would care what she thought of his sister or their relationship was beyond her. He certainly hadn’t cared when he’d ridden away from Winterfell weeks ago.

Perhaps she was the fly in the ointment. Perhaps the oddness she’d witnessed between the siblings traced directly back to her. Brienne’s presence had likely made Jaime feel at least a little self-conscious around his sister, a little guilty, so stilted conversation was probably only to be expected. And Jaime’s attempts to tread lightly around Brienne might’ve also taken a toll.

If Brienne had risen at dawn before the others and not still been abed when Cersei propositioned Jaime, they might’ve fallen into each other’s arms and reunited properly, two halves becoming one perfect whole. Perhaps then the Cersei who would've come down for breakfast might’ve been an entirely different creature, a pleasant one, beaming with love for her brother.

If that were the case, Brienne wouldn’t be standing in their way much longer. Once they'd left her behind, they'd rediscover their rhythm and conduct their grand love affair on some distant island. She tried to visualize the golden pair walking hand in hand by the shimmering sea, basking in a sundrenched world of their own, smiling at one another before sharing a passionate kiss, but somehow she couldn't picture it. 

The scene was blurry, distorted. 

*****

When Brienne and Bronn finally stopped to catch their breath, she settled against the bole of an oak as he claimed a nearby ash.

“I _could_ help you could work through your aggression in an infinitely more satisfying way,” he suggested in a low, insinuating voice. 

Brienne rolled her eyes. "Keep your sword sheathed, Ser. I'm in no mood for your vulgarity today."

He gave a wry chuckle and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. “I don’t blame you for needing a break from all the Lannister drama. I’ve had to deal with their shit for years and it’s bloody exhausting.”

She studied him thoughtfully. It was true Bronn knew the inner-workings of the Lannister family better than most. And he was the kind of person who told it like it was. Blunt to a fault. She couldn’t afford to pass up this opportunity. 

“Is she always like that with him?” Brienne asked carefully.

“Shameful, innit? Believe it or not, you caught her on a good day. She usually treats him much worse.”

Brienne could scarcely imagine such a thing. What would that even look like?

Bronn rubbed his chin and hooked his thumb into his belt. “Her need for him always attracts him like a moth to a flame, but there’s no pleasing her no matter how hard he tries. It’s a vicious cycle, but the cycle might finally be on the verge of breaking.”

She was inclined to think the recent chain of events that began with Jaime abandoning his sister to do what was right and that ended with him returning to her when she was in danger was pretty compelling proof that theirs was a cycle that’d remain forever unbroken. “How do you mean?”

“You’re the one he wants. Whether he’s too much of a coward to do anything about it remains to be seen.”

Brienne gasped, her arms instinctively curling around her middle as if she’d taken a blow to the gut. “That’s not funny,” she finally said, her voice unnaturally loud to her ears.

He slanted an unimpressed glance in her direction. “Who’s laughing? Y’know, no one else would believe that the bloody Kingslayer could look at _anyone_ the way he looks at you. The only reason he got away with it for so long is because I was the only fuckin’ witness for years. Well, me and Pod, but he’s as blind as you." His mouth twitched. "I’d wager after the golden idiot's time in Winterfell, though, there’s an army of northern dullards who can now vouch for his smitten act, too, eh?”

“He looks at me with respect and trust because I saved his life a couple of times,” she said in a measured tone. It was more complicated than that, of course, but also as simple as that at its core. 

Bronn laughed. “For no longer being a maid, you sure are painfully naïve. He looks at you like he wants to tear your clothes off and _respectfully trust_ you up against the wall. Repeatedly. With enthusiasm."

Brienne could feel her face blazing, but dared not give him the satisfaction of looking away.

He muttered a broken-off curse as if the gods were trying his patience. “You say you saved his life? I saved his life more than a couple of times and he couldn’t even be arsed to get me my castle and wife. What you did was save his fucking soul.” 

She thought of Jaime lying to Locke about sapphires, jumping into a bear pit, giving her Oathkeeper, coming north to fight at her side for the living. She shook her head. “No, he saved his own soul.”

“You say that with such sweet earnestness, it’s enough to bring a tear to this heartless cutthroat's eye,” Bronn said with a snicker. “Let me tell you, watching you get thrown into the lion’s den has been the highlight of my year. The three of you are so bloody entertaining. Tyrion will be sorry he missed the show. 

“Don’t worry, later I’ll be sure to fill him in on a day in the life of the Lannister twins and Ser Brienne. It goes like this: She makes some snide remark about you. He leaps to your defense. You blush. He tries to change the subject. She makes some snide remark about him. You leap to his defense. He starts inching toward you as if he can’t help it. She narrows her eyes at him. You avert your gaze and pretend like he isn't two seconds away from pulling you into his lap and sticking his tongue down your throat.”

“That’s not – I never – He doesn’t –“ she sputtered, but Bronn only continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Then the pretty little maiden comes in and bats her eyes at him. Cersei sticks her foot out to trip her. You catch the girl before she crumples on the floor. Jaime sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose as if he’s just waiting for you to swear an oath to the doe-eyed damsel in distress and sign away the rest of your life. Any of this sounding familiar?”

Brienne cocked her head. “Is that what happened? Cersei tripped Alys?”

“Only you would focus on that part. Maybe he's right to fret about you pledging to serve the girl forevermore.”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “He keeps defending me because he regrets that he wronged me. He’s trying to make up for it by sparing me Cersei’s unkind words. He’s also grateful I came and helped save them. That’s all.”

“You’re fooling yourself if you think it’s pity and gratitude that’s making him so jumpy. There’s no _that’s all_ about any of it,” he scoffed, standing to loom over her. “Believe me, I was his right-hand man for years. I know. The little brother always said he felt like the odd man out with the twins, but it’s obvious that the one on the outside looking in is _her_ right now. Jaime thinks he’s so subtle, but it’s clear as day. Fair warning: I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Watch your back.”

Brienne could only gape at him in astonishment. 

Bronn laughed again. “Shit, you’re both pathetic,” he said with feeling, but offered her his hand to help her to her feet.

Numbly, she took it and rose to stand on wobbly legs. She kept turning over his words in her mind, sure he must be mistaken. Bronn glanced over her shoulder then flashed a wolfish grin at her. 

She blinked in confusion at the unceremonious way he pulled her closer. 

“Watch this,” he whispered.

He grabbed her by the face and kissed her. She should have seen it coming, all things considered, but she didn’t so his mouth made contact with hers for one awful moment before she regained her faculties and shoved him away.

Then Jaime was there between them and he hauled off and clobbered Bronn with his golden hand.

Bronn didn’t even try to block him. He just let it happen. The blow landed and he doubled over in pain, laughing even as blood trickled from his lip. 

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” Jaime growled.

Bronn lifted his hands up playfully in surrender and said, “Just proving a point,” and then had the audacity to wink at her before sauntering off.

Brienne released a shuddery sigh and turned away from Jaime, her stomach queasy. 

_She was being ridiculous._

She’d been in no true danger. She had a sword and she knew how to use it. Besides, it'd simply been a chaste peck. Why should that have shaken her so? It’s not like she was some untouched maiden anymore. And it’s not like Bronn even had genuine designs on her…he was just trying to prove a point to her, as he said. But she thought the point he’d made was rather different than the one he’d intended.

She recalled what Cersei had said about women’s lives and it rarely being their choices that shaped them, and cursed herself for being such a privileged wretch that even something as relatively minor as an unwanted kiss could make her skin crawl. 

She wondered how she’d ever imagined she could marry some scornful stranger for the sake of Tarth and grant him access to her body. Maybe before Jaime, she could have willed herself to go through with it. She would never have known the difference, but now the very notion was abhorrent to her.

Selfishly, even after everything that had happened between she and Jaime, she had taken some solace in the idea that the first, last, and _only_ man who’d ever pressed his lips to hers had been the man she loved. And she couldn’t help feeling like Bronn had stolen that from her. 

“I’m alright, Ser Jaime,” she assured him as he hovered at her shoulder.

“You’re not.” He was looking down at her hands that were trembling a bit so she clasped them together tightly. “He’ll not be alone with you again.”

She snorted. “I can take care of myself, Ser. He just caught me off guard. I doubt he’ll try it again, but if he does, I’ll be ready for him,” she vowed, angrily wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Call me 'Ser' one more time and I will not be responsible for my actions, Brienne,” he chided, his gaze intent.

Brienne had noted the way his eye twitched every time she addressed him as such and had taken some petty glee in wielding her cold formality like a weapon. But it was childish behavior unworthy of her so she gave a nod of assent.

Jaime reached out to her, his hand stopping just shy of her face. “Can I?” he asked softly.

Brienne wasn’t even sure what he was intending, but it didn’t matter. Her answer would be the same. 

She nodded again. 

His thumb gingerly traced her bottom lip, back and forth, before whispering over her upper lip. His touch made her tremble anew, but this time it was a pleasant shivery sensation that invited her to lean closer. Far too soon he withdrew from her. “There. Got the last of his spittle,” he announced and they both laughed a little and some of the tension drained away.

“Are _you_ alright?” Brienne asked. When he looked confused, she gestured at his torso. “Did you reopen any stitches when you hit him?”

“Do you never tire of playing nursemaid?” he said fondly then shook his head. “Don’t look so concerned, there’s no need to thread a needle on my account. But, even if one of my wounds had opened, it’d have been worth it.”

She tutted under her breath. “Please at least _try_ to remember to refrain from engaging in any further physical altercations until you’re fully healed,” she said in a long-suffering tone and he smiled.

“You know me…I’m easily provoked. You, on the other hand, have been stoic as ever, calm as still water,” he drawled. “I’ve been impressed by how ably you’ve been handling my sister. You’ve been holding your own.”

Brienne was aware she was something of a lackwit, but the backhanded compliment still stung. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” she replied with a shrug. “And it’s not like a lot of what she said isn’t true.”

His eyes widened in disbelief. “Brienne, almost every single word out of her mouth since you rescued us has been a vicious lie designed to wound you. This is what she does -- she takes a kernel of truth and then weaves insidious, poison-tipped lies around it to target the chink in her opponent's armor. It's the plausibility of her cruelty that makes it so effective."

Brienne coughed. "Effective? That's an interesting way of putting it."

Jaime rocked back on his heels and sighed. "Vindictive. Malicious. Devastating," he amended ruefully. "So please don’t ever believe anything she says, especially not to or about you. I’m just glad she misjudged you so terribly that her jabs aren’t hitting their mark. She thinks you see the world the way she does.”

“Who says I don’t?” she asked with a droll arch of her brow. 

His mouth quirked and he gave another slight shake of the head. “I should have known that you wouldn’t care what someone like her said.”

He was right in some respects, horribly wrong in others. 

After a lifetime of being mocked, it made sense to think she’d have a thicker skin, but the truth was that habitual abuse hadn’t inured her to cruel words. Brienne still felt the prick of Cersei’s thorns each and every time. Her nettling was just tempered by the way Jaime kept wading into the fray on her behalf. No one else had ever done that for her before.

“What she said last night…about a rose…What was that about?” he said, suddenly serious as if he knew he was on shaky ground, but couldn’t resist asking.

The warm glow that had suffused her popped like a bubble. The line of her body went rigid and she clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ached.

“Oh, just the usual tale of a boy being so disgusted by his intended’s unsightly appearance that he rejected her by tossing a rose at her feet. If you want more details, why don’t you ask your sister to fill you in, _Ser?_ ” she snapped. “I’m sure you’ll both get a good laugh out of it at my expense.” 

Jaime pinned her with his own unflinching stare. “I would not. You think I would find it humorous that some odious simpleton not fit to polish your boots was too blind to see you were worth your weight in gold? Well, maybe I would. After all, the joke’s on him. But I could never laugh at the thought that that worthless shit could have made you his years ago and that we might never have met at all. You are _everything_. The only thing that...” he broke off with a snarl, his nostrils flaring.

Worth her weight in gold. Everything. The only thing that...what? Mattered?

He certainly hadn’t thought so before. Not before she saved Cersei.

There was such blazing ferocity in his eyes, such bright, shining wonder, that Brienne wanted to cry, for she knew what it meant.

How could Jaime not be humbled by her love, her devotion?

She felt the immensity of her love for him suddenly bearing down on this clearing in all its unrequited glory, awful and mortifying in its sprawling breadth and naked intensity. 

Without another word, she turned on her heel and marched away.

*****

Brienne supped in the guest room to avoid spending time with the others later that night and made a point of already being in her bedroll by the time they came up. She pretended to be asleep as she listened to their brief conversation. She was only referred to once, thankfully. (Bronn boasting about how he must have tuckered her out with his sword and Cersei tittering softly.)

It could’ve been the wine or it could’ve been that Cersei’s mood had rebounded all on its own without Brienne there to put a damper on supper, but she seemed a world away from the foul-tempered woman she’d been at breakfast. 

Her voice had gone silky smooth as she spoke to her brother about their upcoming travel plans. Denys had apparently informed them that they’d ship out the morning after next. No wonder Cersei sounded so chirpy. That was indeed a cause for celebration.

Brienne would only have to survive one more day in this untenable situation. By all accounts, she should be happy. However, while a part of her was undeniably relieved that this hellish ordeal was coming to a close, another part dreaded saying goodbye to Jaime one last time. 

She kept her eyes shut tightly as the lights were extinguished and she willed sleep to claim her.

Dreams came to her, dark and terrible.

At first the terrifying wartime sequence was familiar. She dreamt of endless night and of dragonfire, of being overrun by wights, attacked by one who wore the face of Pod. 

When the chaos of battle faded from view, she dreamt of Renly. He approached her wearing that amiable smile of his, but when he was close enough to touch, he ripped the rainbow cloak from her shoulders. Brienne looked down to see she was naked.

“Please, my lord…I need that!”

But Renly just sneered and walked away.

Brienne felt tears prick her eyes as a ring of men surrounded her.

They laughed as they ogled her body, ridiculing her every flaw. She recognized the hateful faces around her, their expressions screwed up with disgust. Ben Bushy mocked her meager teats. Edmund Ambrose mocked her broad shoulders and muscular thighs. Mark Mullendore mocked her broken nose and swollen lips, but proclaimed that ‘at least her big mouth could be put to good use.’

They all howled long and hard at that.

Hyle Hunt handed a small leather pouch to Red Ronnet Connington. 

“You earned it!” Hyle said with a guttural laugh, slapping him on the back. “I don’t know how you managed to do the deed, but I suppose all women look the same in the dark.”

Red Ronnet took a step forward and suddenly his face transformed into he who was dearest to her. Jaime smiled cruelly at Brienne, looked her up and down, then said, “As a matter of fact, they do not.” 

He tossed the contents of the pouch at her and a veritable fountain cascaded down on her, the coins stinging her bare skin as they made contact. He stepped even closer and produced a single red rose. “This is all you’ll ever get from me.” 

He grabbed her by the face and squeezed her jaw until her lips parted then he began jamming the rose down her throat, thorns first. 

Brienne woke up with a sputter, her fingers clawing at her neck. 

“Shh, you’re alright, it was just a dream.”

Jaime was there, the real Jaime. He crouched beside her, his hand on her shoulder as if he’d been trying to wake her for some time.

Brienne tried to catch her breath. Her throat felt sore as if it’d been shredded by thorns.

His hand lingered on her shoulder, his thumb grazing her collarbone where the laces of her tunic had come undone. And she just sat there and let him rub his thumb back and forth over her skin, let his touch soothe her frazzled nerves. 

When his palm skimmed the column of her neck, ghosting over the abraded skin she'd scraped raw when she'd clawed at herself in her sleep, she swallowed a sob. She couldn’t help latching onto his wrist and briefly holding onto it to get her bearings. 

But when the tenderness in his gaze became too much for her in the dim light, she pressed her forehead against his shoulder to hide away for a long agonizing moment. 

He stroked her hair until her breathing slowed and she finally felt composed enough to withdraw.

As she shifted away from him, he kissed her temple and gently cupped her cheek. His fingertips gave one last caress before he retreated and gestured at the bed. “Take it.”

She didn’t argue with him this time, just slipped out of her bedroll and shuffled over to curl up on the mattress. If she dreamt after that, she couldn’t recall.


	9. Chapter 9

Bronn was sick to death of all the yearning looks Jaime and Brienne kept exchanging. He’d had it with suffering through the same damn argument with Jaime that always ended with the idiot bleating some version of, “I don’t deserve her. She’s better off without me. I’d never saddle her with the Kingslayer for the rest of her days, especially not after what I did to her.”

It may have been entertaining at first, but now he just wanted to bash their heads together. 

“Too right. Much better to break her heart and make her believe that the Kingslayer dishonored her on a lark, you stupid fuck,” he’d grunted that morning before stalking off into the woods to get away from it all.

He’d even put his face on the line all for the sake of _true love_. His lip had puffed up and his bruised jaw had darkened to an eye-catching shade of mottled purple. At supper last night Cersei had assumed Brienne was the one who’d walloped him and marked his face. Jaime had fixed him with a hard look so he’d gone along with her assumption. 

He might take pleasure in riling up the pair of tall, blond toffs, but he didn’t want the lady knight to come to any harm as a result. And if Cersei knew her brother had defended Brienne’s honor with the violence that was usually reserved for her, some unfortunate accident would likely befall Brienne before the ship set sail tomorrow.

Well, if Jaime Lannister was too much of a feckless cunt to take what was his, maybe the lady knight would reconsider his offer. If Tyrion was able to secure Highgarden for him, she’d be a fool to turn him down. He’d meant it when he said he thought they’d have fun together.

Bronn sensed he was being watched. He turned, expecting the lady in question to approach in need of another good spar, but instead of a giant, tow-headed knight, he was greeted with just the opposite. A petite girl with dark hair emerged from the tree line, moving with fluidity, yet not the kind most ladies exhibited. There was an economy of movement there that any soldier could appreciate. 

He smiled broadly and sketched a gallant bow. 

“Wandered far afield, did you?” he said, although he could tell this one moved with too much purpose to _wander_ anywhere. “I, Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, would be honored to escort you to safety. What do you call yourself, my lady?” 

“No one.”

It was not until she was right up on top of him that he recognized the predatory glint in her eye, but by then, it was too late. There was the flash of a blade and then he knew no more.

*****

The last thing Brienne expected to stumble upon when she came down the stairs was Jaime looking trapped and bemused as Alys advanced on him.

“Please…please…” the girl was begging, her hands clasped together fervently.

They both glanced up at her approach, Jaime with palpable relief and Alys with mild disappointment. He abruptly skirted around Alys and came to stand at Brienne’s side.

“Ser Brienne is far better equipped to help you in your aims.” He leaned in toward Brienne, mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Alys here was just telling me that she’s in desperate need of a dancing partner.”

Brienne tried to demur, but Alys suddenly turned the full force of her pleading, persuasive gaze on her. “Please, milady. A knight visited some months back and he taught me a few steps, but practicing by myself just isn’t the same,” she said all in a rush.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Brienne stammered, feeling trapped and bemused herself.

But Jaime only smirked. “Of course you could. And as a knight of the realm, isn’t it your duty to come to the aid of a maiden in need? I would have expected more chivalry from you, Ser Brienne.” 

“I could say the same to you, Ser,” she retorted drily.

“I know a girl like me will never be invited to court so it matters not, but I just thought…” Alys trailed off with a sniffle.

The combination of her own childhood dreams of being swept off her feet by some dashing boy on the dance floor and the piteous expression on Alys’ face wore Brienne down. At least Bronn had made himself scarce and Cersei had practically pushed Brienne out the door upstairs, demanding privacy, so she wouldn’t have an audience for this. Excepting the one who was presently twinkling at her, smug that he’d been able to fob this task off on her.

Brienne rolled up her sleeves and helped move the furniture to make space in front of the hearth then took Alys’ hand in her own. 

“I’ll warn you, I’m hardly graceful or well-versed in the art of dancing myself,” she said.

“I beg to differ,” Jaime said. “I’ve always thought you had excellent footwork.”

Brienne glared at him. He was leaning against the opposite wall, appearing far too pleased with himself.

Brienne counted it out at first, but then Jaime chimed in, humming a merry tune as they haltingly danced across the floor. She wasn’t sure which of them was less coordinated. It didn’t matter how often she stopped to correct their form, not a moment later they’d be all tangled up again. 

After the tenth time the girl trod on her foot and blushed profusely, another apology at the ready, Brienne lifted her up so her dainty feet rested on top of Brienne's boots. Even with the additional boost, Alys barely reached her shoulder.

They swayed like that for several paces before bursting into laughter. Brienne and Alys clutched at each other to keep their balance as they giggled uncontrollably. Jaime wasn’t immune to the absurd hilarity of the moment either. He doubled over and laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes. 

When Brienne’s shoulders finally stopped trembling with laughter and she could breathe again, she was met with Jaime’s upturned palm.

“Perhaps Alys would benefit from a demonstration. Might I have this dance, my lady?”

“You’re still healing. You’re meant to be taking it easy,” she protested weakly, her heart fluttering at the thought.

“I think I can manage a simple dance, Brienne,” he insisted with a wry quirk of his lips.

Brienne hesitated, but Alys smiled warmly at the idea. She bounced over to take Jaime’s position against the wall and began singing a lovely song Brienne had never heard before. While Alys may not have been a born dancer, she certainly had a voice as sweet as a nightingale.

Brienne reluctantly took Jaime’s hand and let him draw her in, his golden hand coming up to settle on her waist. 

The last man she’d danced with had been Renly. This was nothing like that. Renly had been kind and charming…and safe. 

Jaime was none of those things, not right then. 

He was holding her more closely than the dance called for, pinning her in place with his unwavering gaze. He moved with surety, his body guiding her, urging her to follow where he led. 

Brienne's cheeks colored as she listened to the lyrics detailing a knight’s valiant attempts to woo his lady love. Jaime’s chuckled lowly when the knight slew a wild beast to rescue the object of his affections.

When he tugged her fully into his arms so that they touched from hip to shoulder, they both gasped softly. Her mouth went dry at the look in his eye and she could see the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. 

Somehow, without her permission, her hand crept from his shoulder to the nape of his neck to run her fingers through his hair, earning a broken-off moan from him. 

He tipped his head back into her touch, baring his throat to her. But it was the vibration deep in his chest she could feel, pressed flush against him as she was, that brought her back to her senses.

She recoiled in horror at her presumption, utterly mortified, but Jaime only hauled her closer, wrapping his right arm around her so tightly that his golden hand dug into her right hip.

No, this was nothing like Renly. 

Her younger self would’ve fallen into a swoon if she was in her position now. She wouldn’t have known what to do with the press of a man’s body against hers, let alone a man like Jaime’s. She wouldn’t have known what to do with those dark eyes roaming intently over her features, darting to her mouth when she bit her lip.

Seven hells, Brienne barely knew what to do herself when faced with such provocation.

All she knew was that she felt alive, truly alive, for the first time since he left her.

Her heart clenched at the thought that he would be gone by this hour tomorrow. This, right now, might be the last time she ever touched him. It was too much...and not enough, all at the same time. Panic thrummed in her veins.

She tried to break the spell, but every time she gathered her nerve to flee, Jaime would reel her back in. He'd murmur her name, interlace their fingers where their hands were clasped together, nudge her closer with his golden hand against her lower back. 

Finally, she surrendered, losing herself in the melody, the rhythm of their bodies moving as one, trusting him not to lead her astray. 

Jaime's eyes lit with fierce satisfaction when she melted against him, and he squeezed her hand. "Now, was that so hard?" he asked roughly, spinning her around until she was breathless and felt light as a feather. 

In the end, the spell was broken not by the conclusion of the song, but by a shrill titter that made all the hairs on Brienne’s neck stand up. 

“Such grace, such _beauty_!” Cersei proclaimed. 

Brienne jerked away from Jaime with a start and Alys immediately stopped singing. Cersei stood in the entryway with a knowing smirk. Bronn hovered just behind her, but then strode forward, whistling a jaunty tune of his own into the pregnant silence.

“How agile you are, Lady Brienne,” she continued, her lip curling in derision. “Surprisingly light on your feet for one so…statuesque. Why, you could be mistaken for a woman half your size. There was none of the ominous rumbling underfoot that I would’ve expected from you plodding around.” 

Brienne reddened, but firmed her jaw. “How kind of you to say, my lady. Of course one needs time and practice to excel in such pursuits, and I admit I found dancing and embroidery and the like dreadfully boring as a child. My father was good enough to let me train with a sword instead. I assume a lady as accomplished as yourself, however, must have devoted _significant time_ to such activities in your youth." 

Cersei froze, her gaze going calculating, as if she was trying to determine whether she'd been complimented or insulted. Bronn gave the game away by snorting.

"I’m sure you and your brother could give Alys a far better demonstration," Brienne suggested with a bland smile.

Brienne wasn't a glutton for punishment so she had no intention of sticking around to watch the show. Bowing out was undoubtedly the right decision. For, Jaime's partner in life, death, and dance was Cersei, not her. He should be peering soulfully into his sister's eyes, cradling _her_ in his arms as if she were precious. That type of intimacy was reserved for lovers, after all. Not former lovers who never should have been lovers in the first place.

She edged toward the door as Cersei glided over to Jaime. “Dear brother, let us show them how it’s really done.” 

Bronn sidled up next to Brienne. “I didn’t have any fancy lord training so dancing is out, but would you care for a spar?”

“I should see to the horses.” She paused and then added, “You’re welcome to join me.”

It was the first she’d spoken to Bronn since the incident in the clearing, but he gave no indication that he felt any of the awkwardness she did. He inclined his head and casually offered her his arm. Jaime glared daggers at him, but Brienne waved off his concern, more than ready to beat a hasty retreat. She did, however, refuse his arm which only made Bronn chortle as he trailed after her.

*****

As Brienne brushed the horses, Bronn lounged nearby eating an apple.

For once he seemed content to pass the time in silence. Usually, Brienne would be of the same mind, but the longer it went on, the more her irritation only intensified.

“I’m waiting,” she finally said curtly.

“For what?”

“An apology, Ser.”

He shrugged. “Again, I say ‘for what?’ I do so many things that would cause offense, you’ll have to narrow it down.”

Brienne couldn’t believe he was going to make her spell it out. “For kissing me,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “I know why you did it. To get a rise out of Jaime. Which you accomplished. But it’s not like you think.”

Bronn cocked his head to the side. “How is it, then?”

“He’s protective of me. After what we went through in the Riverlands years ago, he can’t help but feel duty-bound to ensure I suffer no further unwanted advances.”

Brienne thought back to that traumatic time in their lives. Even though Jaime’s lie about sapphires had saved her from rape, she’d still had men grope her in the days that followed. The morning one of the shits had _accidentally_ slid his hand between her thighs as he untied her, she’d been overcome by fury and fear and shame. 

Being bound face to face with Jaime and feeling his weight against her had been a comfort then, the touch of another who was as much a victim of their brutality as she was. More, in fact. After they’d been riding long enough that the others were no longer paying them any mind, she’d briefly rested her chin on his shoulder, pressed her mouth to his ratty tunic to muffle a sob. He’d been out of it, but even in his delirium, he’d risen to the surface to repeat her words back to him about living to take revenge. His nose had brushed her temple and she’d exhaled deeply, regaining her resolve. 

“He reacted the same way when Tormund approached me in Winterfell. At the time I mistook his concern for jealousy, but now I realize he saw the lecherous way Tormund looked at me and viewed him as a potential threat. Just as he saw you lunge at me to steal a kiss and raced over to intervene. It’s not jealousy driving his actions, it’s chivalry, guilt, and a fair amount of pity. You're wrong about him. I _know_ Jaime. He cares for me, but that is the extent of it.”

“If that’s what you really think, why come rescue the cunt?” he asked.

“It wasn’t a choice. Not really. It’s difficult to explain. Nobody would understand, nobody _has_ understood…not Lady Sansa, not Podrick, not Tyrion,” she said, her voice faltering as she listed them off.

Bronn tossed his apple core on the ground and crossed his arms. “Well, then, I’m bored and could use a chuckle. Explain it to me. Tell me why the honorable Brienne of Tarth returned to save the Kingslayer after he’d spurned her so.”

Brienne considered him for a moment then stared off into the distance to gather her thoughts. 

“Everyone thinks him a traitor and by some estimates, I suppose he is,” she said slowly. “But he didn’t return to his twin to betray us. He didn't return to help her defeat her enemies. He saw that the woman he loved, the mother of his children, _his queen_ , was in danger and he went back to save her or die with her. There was no lapse of honor, in my eyes. He wanted me to think all manner of foul things about him when he left, but they weren’t true. He was still the same man as he’d been before. The same man who came north to fight for the living because it was the right thing to do.” 

“Begging your pardon, my lady, but he dishonored you…” he said bluntly, his flinty gaze colder than she’d ever seen. 

Brienne was taken aback. She would've guessed Bronn would be the last man alive who'd spare a thought for the state of her reputation. Besides, he'd been such a staunch defender of Jaime's yesterday, delivering such a surprisingly compelling argument that Brienne had almost been swayed in spite of herself. Maybe he'd overheard something last night when Brienne had absented herself from supper that made him aware that he'd misjudged the situation.

She sighed. “No, he didn’t. He may have broken my heart, but he didn’t bring dishonor to me. Men like to think a highborn lady’s entire worth rests between her legs, but that's ridiculous...and deeply insulting as well, I'll have you know.”

He barked a laugh, almost as if it'd been startled out of him.

“I chose to lie with him that night and all of the nights that followed. It was my choice, and as Cersei pointed out before, most women don’t get to make that choice at all. When Jaime came to me the night of the feast he didn’t aim to trick me or deceive me. He was just so turned around by the battle he didn’t know his own heart, and I wanted him so badly that I overlooked the truth. After all, a man like him could never truly want a woman like me.”

"Aye, that's why he was dancing with you not an hour ago, looking at you like he wanted to tumble you to the floor and mount you." Bronn gave a wry shake of his head. “'Sides, men don't fuck women they don't desire, 'specially not men like him. He must’ve wanted you at least a little.”

Brienne smiled wanly. “He must have done at that. I think he clung to the idea of this other life he could lead away from Cersei, but then the illusion crumbled and he could no longer deny the pull of his sister anymore. He couldn’t bear Cersei facing her end alone so he went to her. Anyone who’s loved without reason or condition should be able to understand that impulse. I know I do,” she said with an expansive gesture.

He stared at her and for a moment his expression was so blank, so devoid of emotion, that she wondered if boredom had sent him careening headlong into reverie simply to escape her nattering. But then he blinked and his mouth twitched with the characteristic irreverent humor she'd come to expect from him. "I don't. But then callous sellswords are not acquainted with such impulses, I'm afraid."

"You talk a good game, but you don't fool me. I know you care for both Lannister brothers. You've risked your life for them when it would've been more prudent to cut your losses. Saving Jaime from that dragon was impulsive, reckless, stupid, but it was just instinct, wasn't it? It wasn't a choice."

He stroked his bruised jaw noncommittally.

She bowed her head, the weight of her decision still pressing down upon her shoulders. “Lady Sansa sees me as this great protector, this knight, this warrior. But that’s not me.”

Bronn emitted a strange little hum at that. 

“Or at least not all of me,” she amended. “I’m more than a weapon to be wielded. I have feelings, hopes, dreams, the same as anyone else. And sometimes they’re messy and inconvenient. All I know is that I had to save him, I had to try. I wouldn’t have been me otherwise.”

He studied her keenly as if he was taking her measure. “I understand,” he said at last, and the unprecedented seriousness of his tone made Brienne think he possibly did. "That's not you."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for attempted rape.

Dusk fell and so, too, did Brienne’s spirits as her remaining time with Jaime dwindled away. 

Only a few hours had passed since they’d danced, and yet it might as well have been a lifetime. Her recollection of the experience had begun to blur around the edges, the memory losing detail and texture and nuance. And the harder she tried to grasp at the fragments dangling just beyond her reach, the more they eluded her. After tonight, her memories would be all she had left of him and already they were failing her. 

But that was as it should be, she supposed. In the end, Jaime had never been hers to keep.

Jeyne brushed by Brienne in an apron with a harried expression on her face. “Where has that girl gotten to now? She was meant to be helping me with the cooking.”

Brienne offered to look for her. She wondered if Alys had crept off to practice her dance steps outside where there’d be more privacy and more space to spin in her imaginary partner’s arms. She could well remember doing such things when she was that age.

Brienne had barely opened the back door when she heard a blood-curdling scream. Jaime and Bronn immediately came running. 

“Fuck, they found us,” Jaime cursed.

“It could be a trap,” Bronn agreed. “They’re tryin’ to lure us out into a less defensible position to ambush us.” 

Brienne wasn’t so sure. If the Dragon Queen’s forces had truly tracked them down, they’d have just stormed the cottage, not resorted to underhanded tactics such as this to roust them out. 

Another scream carried on the wind, a ragged and terrible thing. 

_Alys_.

Brienne's heart jumped into her throat. “It makes no difference to me whether it's a trap. Alys is an innocent who needs help,” she said stoutly.

Jaime met her eye and then, as one, they drew their swords. “Shall we, my lady?”

Cersei appeared as if on cue and rounded on her brother. “Where do you think you’re going? You’re a one-handed cripple who barely survived a stabbing. You’re in no condition to be playing hero. Let your beast do what she does best. If she’s as knightly as you think she is, she should be able to handle this on her own.” 

Jaime turned away from her, but Cersei grabbed ahold of his arm. “We’re the only ones who matter.” 

Brienne didn’t stick around to hear his response. She charged ahead and was surprised when Jaime followed in her footsteps not two paces later instead of having been swayed by his sister’s pleas. 

They were out in the open. She wasn’t wearing armor, but there hadn’t been time to rectify that. 

This was the moment arrows would rain down or a dragon would start circling overhead if it were an ambush, but neither happened. When they ventured deeper into the woods without incident, Brienne began to believe her suspicions had been correct and that whatever they faced was not the jagged edge of the queen’s justice.

It didn’t take them long to hear the telltale jeering laughter, the cries of Alys, as they approached the clearing. With a nod, they separated to flank the men.

Brienne peered through the dense foliage and saw a ring of men terrorizing Alys, their revolting taunts so very much like those she'd heard spat at her from the men in her nightmare. They were toying with her which was actually preferable to the alternative because it meant that while her skirts were torn, she hadn’t been brutalized yet. 

Brienne made her move when one of the brutes hurled Alys to the ground and kicked her. She plowed through the men on her side of the clearing with ease. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jaime laying waste to the men on the other. 

All the men had going for them was sheer numbers. There were ten of them, but they were just run-of-the-mill outlaws, opportunistic thugs, who’d happened upon a pretty girl and decided to ruin her for sport. Dispatching these men was nothing compared to fighting the dead.

After Brienne knocked yet another man to his knees, Jaime met her gaze and twirled his sword playfully. He shot her a cocky grin and she couldn’t help returning it. The sheer exhilaration of fighting beside Jaime would never grow old.

That was all the opening needed for a nimble bandit to dart forward, rip off Jaime’s gold hand, and slash at his stump. Jaime shouted and wheeled on his attacker, but Bronn got there first, slitting his throat from behind.

“It’s about time! Where the fuck have you been?” Jaime growled.

“It looked like you two had it well in _hand_ ,” Bronn said, snatching up the golden hand and shoving it into Jaime’s chest. “Besides, I was enjoying the show.”

When the last man fell at Brienne’s feet, she shifted to crouch at Alys' side where she was huddled on the ground. She removed her cloak and fastened it around the girl’s trembling shoulders.

Alys’ eyes were wide with fright, glassy, but when they focused on Brienne, the girl whimpered and threw her arms around her neck.

Brienne was not used to offering comfort in such a way, but she followed her instincts and gingerly placed her hand on the girl’s back. “You’re safe now, Alys, you’re safe,” she assured her.

Alys broke down in tears, thanking Brienne over and over again between her gut-wrenching sobs. Brienne rested her chin against the crown of the girl's head and thanked the old gods and the new that she and Jaime had gotten to Alys before it was too late.

When Alys shivered in a way that Brienne suspected was due more to the chill in the air than the trauma of what had just happened, she urged her to her feet. But Alys was so unsteady and clutched at Brienne so fiercely that she elected to scoop her up in her arms to carry her home. 

Jaime and Bronn were still standing there, staring at her with peculiar intensity, but she ignored them as she navigated the bodies strewn about the clearing and strode past them.

In the cottage Cersei took one look at Brienne with Alys in her arms and sneered. “Was there ever any doubt the knight would rescue the damsel in distress?”

Brienne swept past her and up the stairs. Jeyne and Denys ushered Brienne into their room to set her down on the bed. To their credit, they both seemed genuinely upset when they saw the violence that had been visited upon Alys. They were still unfit guardians in Brienne’s opinion, but they clearly weren’t as uncaring as she’d initially feared.

Denys tended to the girl's injuries. They were relatively minor, although she was bruised and battered, her previously unblemished skin littered with cuts and scrapes.

At Alys’ request, Brienne stayed at her bedside holding her hand until she drifted off to sleep. Just before her lashes fluttered shut, Alys murmured drowsily, “I hope someday a man will look at me the way he does you.”

Brienne frowned. “What?” 

Alys’ mouth curved up in the faintest of smiles. “The handsome one. Ser Jaime. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Not when you were dancing before and not after you saved me. He must love you an awful lot. It was like something from a song.”

*****

Brienne returned downstairs to find the Lannister twins and Bronn in the middle of a heated argument.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself!” Cersei snapped at Jaime. “Risking yourself and drawing attention to us like that! And for what? Some peasant girl?”

“I had to do it,” Jaime said lowly, “and we succeeded in rescuing Alys so I don’t see what the problem is.”

“I’ll tell you what the problem is: You exposed us. Who’s to say someone isn’t presently on their way to report our location to the Targaryen bitch because of your rash decision? We’ll be lucky if they don’t come for us in the night.” 

Bronn laughed. “If dead men could talk, I’d agree, but as it is, you’d have to dig them up first for them to be in any condition to relay the whereabouts of the Kingslayer and his treacherous sister.”

Cersei fixed him with an unimpressed glare. “You can't be sure that you got them all. What if one of them got away? What if there was a guard you missed? Someone who spotted him with his golden hand and her with her lion sword, standing tall as any Clegane, and knew that passing along such information would yield a tidy sum, hm?” She glanced disdainfully at Jaime then Brienne. “Aside from the Imp, you two have to be the most _freakish_ figures to have ever graced Westeros.”

“They _are_ bloody conspicuous, I’ll give you that!” Bronn said with a chuckle. "Whereas, you...you could be _anyone_. There's nothin' particularly memorable 'bout you, is there? I mean, take the crown off your head and who are you?"

Cersei reared back as if she'd been slapped.

Brienne straightened to her full height and lifted her chin, all the better to look down her nose at Cersei. “There were ten men when I stepped into the clearing and ten bodies when I left it. And I don’t think any of those depraved shits would’ve been willing to skip the fun in order to patrol the perimeter after such easy prey crossed their path,” she stated with certainty. Her time among the Bloody Mummers had taught her that. “But even if I’m wrong, what’s done is done. By this time tomorrow it will matter not.”

Cersei smiled tightly. “You’re correct, Ser. _None of this_ will matter come tomorrow.”

"Well, let's hear it," Jaime said to Bronn.

"What?"

"You must be dying to gloat about how that whoreson stole your signature move..."

When Bronn only cocked a brow, Jaime rolled his eyes. "Ripping my hand off, you forgetful fucker. At least he didn't hit me with it."

A smirk spread across Bronn's weathered face. "Better that than a knife to the stump. It was a stupid move on his part, but I guess at that point, he saw pure gold and lost his damn mind. Decided to nab the hand and flee. Bless his thieving heart."

Brienne studied Jaime, noting the tension in his frame and the thin strip of linen that'd been haphazardly tied around his stump. 

“How bad is it?” she asked him and he lifted his arm to examine the wound more closely, prodding at it a bit.

Cersei shrank away from the sight, her nose wrinkling with patent disgust.

When Jaime winced and angled his stump away, looking shamefaced, Brienne’s stomach churned. Suddenly she was reminded of how Jaime had kept his golden hand on the entire time they'd been at the cottage, not even taking it off at night to sleep. Now she knew why.

There was only one thing for it. Brienne quickly gathered supplies and returned.

“Sit,” she ordered Jaime, firmly but gently. She steered him over to a chair and knelt before him to clean the wound. The cut was shallower than she’d expected, thank the gods. 

As she tended to him, she noticed he was watching her intently, looking at her like he couldn't believe his eyes.

It was the same expression he’d worn when she rose to her feet after he knighted her, when she’d disrobed the night of the feast. The same he’d worn when they’d been in bed that first night and he’d touched his forehead to hers, placed his palm over her heart, and said, “Mine.” 

And that had been the crux of it, hadn’t it? Brienne was Jaime’s. Jaime was Cersei’s. And Cersei was…Cersei’s.

It took his sister’s callous reaction to his stump for Brienne to truly understand.

 _Oh_ , she thought. _I see. I finally get it._

They were the same, she and Jaime, both fools for love, unlucky enough to have lost their hearts to one who couldn't return the favor.

As she applied the salve, she considered how intolerable it would be to love one person with all your heart, but have it be another who loved you with all theirs. As hard as all this had been on her, she didn’t envy him the position of being caught in the middle. Enduring the heartache of unrequited love was painful enough, but suffering pangs of guilt because your apathy for another caused them the same misery would be infinitely worse.

“I can see why you kept her around so long, dear brother.”

Cersei’s voice cut into Brienne’s musings. She looked up to see that the other woman was leaning against the wall and from the sharpness of her gaze, she suspected she’d been observing them the whole time.

“Why, she’s a bodyguard and a nursemaid all rolled into one,” she purred. “It’s like she’s your very own cross between The Mountain and Qyburn.”

Both Jaime and Brienne blanched at the comparison. By now Brienne should’ve been prepared for such scathing commentary, and yet she still felt bruised and insignificant in the face of Cersei’s cruelty.

“Brienne’s _nothing_ like your monsters,” Jaime spat, his good hand curling into a fist. “What she is is a knight and a lady. The Warrior and the Maiden. Two sides of the same coin.”

Cersei's contemptuous moue didn't falter. If anything, the pout of her lips only became more pronounced before she walked away. 

Brienne hurriedly finished securing his bandage with trembling fingers. When she was done, Jaime reached out to touch her face, his knuckles skimming over her cheek, his thumb tracing her jaw line, flickering over her chin.

His hand lingered on her face as hers lingered upon his bandaged stump, stroking absently, before she remembered herself and stood. “Don’t wear your gold hand until it’s healed. I don’t care what your sister says. Keep it off for at least the next fortnight,” she warned before stiffly moving away. 

She ignored Bronn’s knowing gaze as she exited the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!


	11. Chapter 11

Somehow for the first time since they'd been stranded there, Jaime and Brienne ended up on the same side of the table for supper. 

It proved to be a somber affair, recent events having naturally cast a pall over the evening. 

Jeyne had been so addled by what had happened that she’d forgotten to cut up Jaime’s horse steak the way she had the nights before. And Brienne, lost in her own sluggish thoughts of Alys recovering upstairs and of Jaime’s imminent departure tomorrow, fell back into old habits without thinking.

She cut the steak up for him, buttered his bread. And Jaime took his cue from her, silently passing over his oatcakes in exchange for a wedge of her cheese. It could’ve been any number of the nights they'd dined together in Winterfell. It was all so routine that Brienne didn’t think anything of it until Bronn snorted.

She still didn’t understand until he blatantly eyed their plates and utensils, and she caught Cersei scowling at her. She blushed hotly. Jaime, however, didn’t appear to be paying any mind to either of the people opposite him as he shoveled food into his mouth.

But when Cersei handed Brienne a goblet, it became clear he wasn’t nearly half as oblivious as he seemed. Jaime suddenly bolted upright to snatch it out of her fingers and throw its contents out of the window.

When they all gaped at him, he just shrugged. “Lady Brienne doesn’t drink wine,” he said.

“It was cider,” Cersei snapped.

“Oh, my mistake. Here, take mine,” he said innocently, nudging his glass in front of Brienne.

A cold shiver raced down Brienne’s spine as she grasped the import of what had just happened. She'd known not to trust Cersei, but she hadn't been prepared for anything like this. She didn't see how Cersei would even have access to poison after fleeing the capital with only the clothes on her back. Perhaps Jaime was simply being paranoid. But it was still chilling that he thought it a possibility and had felt the need to intervene just in case.

The twins stared at each other for a long moment, her lips quirking mockingly, his eyes glittering with something dangerous.

Cersei took a sip of her wine. “It would seem saving that wretched girl’s life accomplished something. The inkeep and his wife are now appropriately indebted to us. I suppose we can let them live after all…” she pronounced grandly.

Brienne balked at her high-handedness. Cersei spoke as if it was _charitable_ to refrain from killing the very people who’d saved Jaime’s life and given them sanctuary. 

“They were always going to live. I would’ve made sure of it if it was the last thing I did,” Brienne said with steely resolve.

Amusement lit Cersei's features. “You believe you could take on my dear brother and this ruthless cutthroat and live to tell the tale?” 

“If I had to, yes,” she said. It wasn’t arrogance, just the truth of things.

“Without a doubt,” Jaime agreed with a lazy smile.

Bronn smirked. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Your problem is you’re too fucking honorable. You don’t fight dirty.”

Brienne set her jaw. “Innocent lives are more important than my bloody honor. I’d do whatever needed to be done.”

“Was it an _innocent_ life you saved, though? Did you get there in time or were you too late?” Cersei's curiosity was tinged with malevolent intent. “Was there even innocence left to violate? From the whorish way the girl has been acting since we arrived, I’d say no.” 

Brienne reared back and glanced at Jaime whose expression had turned thunderous.

“I think you’ve had too much to drink, sweet sister. It’s all gone to your head. Perhaps you should retire for the night,” he suggested in a strained voice.

Cersei smiled sweetly. “Why don’t you just toss my drink out the window, too?”

“Don’t tempt me,” he muttered. 

Cersei’s façade cracked and she reached out to slap Jaime. No one was more surprised than Brienne when her own hand shot out to catch Cersei by the wrist before the blow could land. It was just reflex, instinct.

For a moment everyone froze, stuck in this absurd tableau. But then Brienne released Cersei and bowed her head, unable to meet either Lannister’s eye. She was mortified. 

She may not understand it or condone it, but this friction, this push and pull, was obviously part of the twins’ dynamic. Their relationship was combative, tumultuous, passionate, and it was everything Jaime wanted in life so who was she to judge? Maybe a slap from Cersei was akin to foreplay, the same way sparring in Winterfell had often led to the pair of them tumbling into bed afterward. And yet, the two scenarios somehow felt very, very different.

“Tell me, Ser Brienne, at what age did you know you would never be loved? 12? 6? Even earlier than that?” Cersei asked, no longer even trying to maintain the veneer of civility.

“Sister, you are mistaken. Brienne is loved by many people. They practically throw a parade up north each time she enters the room,” Jaime said lightly, but his body had stiffened and his hand suddenly gripped Brienne’s thigh under the table.

Cersei kept coolly appraising Brienne. “I refer to the kind of love a man has for a woman, of course.”

“Ah, no, she had multiple admirers in Winterfell,” he said blithely, giving her thigh a squeeze. “One a big ginger brute, boorish and loud, but amiable enough, I suppose. Another a besotted fool who kept following her around like a stray pup. They both would have died for her and almost did, come to think of it.” 

She refused to let Cersei cow her. She folded her hands in her lap and forced herself to straighten so her shoulders weren’t up around her ears. She took a fortifying breath. It was easier to focus on the first part of what Jaime had said rather than the second. 

“For the last time, you vastly overstate Tormund’s regard for me. He didn’t…feel that way about me.”

“It’s you who understate it. Even a blind man could see how smitten he was. When you rejected him, you reduced him to tears!” As soon as the last word fell from his lips, Jaime went very still and his eyes shot to Brienne’s in horror. The memory of Brienne weeping as he rode away was clearly still as fresh in his mind as it was in hers.

“And what of the besotted fool…do you suppose he loved you?” Cersei asked, her bright gaze piercing in its intensity.

“No,” Brienne said at the same time Jaime said, “Yes.” His hand stroked her leg from knee to upper thigh once, twice, thrice, trying to get her to look at him, but she turned away. She knew he meant well, but he was only making it harder for her with his pretty lies.

“I’m curious, did this mysterious admirer flip you onto your hands and knees and take you from behind like a wild beast or cover your face to do the deed?” 

Jaime let go of Brienne’s thigh and pounded his fist on the table. “Cersei, that is enough.” His voice was sharp, the crack of a whip.

There was a crazed light in Cersei’s eye and spittle flew from her mouth as she dropped all pretense. “Or was it just pitch dark so my dear brother didn’t even need to close his eyes to imagine it was me?”

Brienne flinched, the burn of tears pricking her eyes, but she met that hateful gaze squarely. “No. It was firelight.”

Jaime stood to loom over his sister. “Face to face,” he added.

Cersei leapt to her feet and threw her goblet at him. Jaime ducked, the glass shattering against the wall. Her mouth twisted into a rictus of fury. “So the rumors were true then. The Kingslayer’s _Whore_...we meet at last.” 

Then she whirled away and flounced up the stairs.

Once Cersei was gone, Jaime sank back into his chair as if his strings had been cut.

They sat in stunned silence until Bronn cleared his throat.

“You know, your sister made me an offer. She said if I slit Ser Brienne’s throat tonight, she’d marry me herself and we’d take back her throne from the Dragon Queen,” he said casually as if he were informing them of the weather. 

Brienne’s hand went to the hilt of her sword and Jaime stood again so fast, his chair crashed to the floor. 

Bronn just regarded them placidly. “If she wasn’t mad and utterly powerless, I’d consider the offer. But well, she’s lost her bloody mind, hasn’t she? I just thought you should know that you anticipated poison, but somehow you overlooked the rakish sellsword who stole a kiss and could’ve stuck a dagger in your gut. Take better care in the future. Both of you.” 

He languidly rose to his feet. “And now I’ll just go up and keep your mad sister company while you two… _talk_.” He ambled away, whistling to himself.

Jaime righted his chair and then gestured for her to join him by the hearth. “Come,” he said and she followed him the short distance to gingerly perch upon the edge of a plush armchair situated in front of the fire.

“I apologize for letting her goad me,” Brienne finally said.

“It was understandable. I can’t believe you held your tongue as long as you did. Your self-restraint is to be commended,” he said with an ironic twist to his mouth.

“Tell her I lied. That it was just pathetic imaginings from a pitiful wretch. And that you went along with it because you wanted to make her jealous. Anyone would believe that over the truth.” 

Jaime furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about? She knows it’s the truth. She’s known since she asked why I no longer named you maid. Perhaps even before then. Perhaps from the moment you appeared on the beach to pull us out. We are fairly obvious. Or so I’ve been told by Bronn.”

Brienne studied her hands folded in her lap and tried to collect her thoughts.

She realized this was her last chance to speak with him in private. Tomorrow his sister would be with him and she would need to bid him farewell in as curt and impersonal a manner as possible. A simple nod would have to do.

After they’d danced earlier, Brienne had mentally rehearsed what she should say to Jaime before he left. But try as she might, she hadn’t been able to think of a single farewell she could utter that would be fitting. 

Some bland salutation would be inadequate and some heartfelt admission of love would be inappropriate, not to mention unwelcome. 

She could grant him forgiveness, she supposed, but after all they’d been through over the past few days, it seemed unnecessary. Besides, she could tell that was the last thing he wanted from her. He’d brush her words aside, if she dared.

She should’ve been an expert at parting from Jaime by now, considering the numerous times their paths had diverged. Of all of their goodbyes, their first had been the easiest by far. 

If only she could recapture the grace she’d possessed when he bade her farewell at Harrenhal. She had comported herself with dignity then, spoken with sincerity and shown him the utmost respect without embarrassing herself with any uncalled for sentimentality. 

But just then her nerves were so frayed, such poise didn’t seem possible. At least she could be certain this goodbye wouldn’t be the worst. Whatever else she said or did, she vowed she would not weep or beg him to stay which meant it’d already be a vast improvement on how they left things the last time.

Jaime was still looking at her, his eyes tracing every feature of her face. 

Brienne read the warmth in his gaze and saw the truth.

It hadn’t all been a fabrication, figments of a fever dream. He had felt something for her, something real. 

He’d respected her. He’d been one of the very first to see her worth and she wouldn’t ever forget that. He’d given her a sword and a quest, and set her on the path to glory. She recalled the awestruck expression on his face when he’d knighted her. She had never seen its like on another man’s face even when they were beholding a flawless beauty.

He’d trusted her. Their captivity in the Riverlands had broken them down and forced intimacy on them. How could you not trust someone who’d washed vomit out of your beard, who’d cleaned you after you’d soiled yourself in the saddle? If she closed her eyes, she could still remember how it felt to be bound together on a horse, Jaime’s rotting hand slapping against her breasts, his tears dampening her neck as he wept shamelessly. She knew Jaime would’ve sooner died than had anyone else see him that way, including and most especially his sister. There were no pretenses between them. No airs. They knew each other too well, all told. 

He’d wanted her. At least for a little while. Men couldn’t fake…that. He could’ve sought out any woman the night of the feast and yet he’d come to her, a maiden who’d never even been kissed, who was widely considered so undesirable that Tormund’s interest in her was a jest worthy of uproarious laughter. And despite Cersei’s malicious assumptions, he hadn’t turned her over or shut his eyes when they were together so she didn’t think he’d imagined another in her place or that secretly he’d been disgusted by her. He’d looked her in the eye each time they’d fallen into bed and he’d said her name as if it meant something to him. 

So what if he didn’t love her? How greedy was she to have expected that from him, too? There was always a trade-off, it seemed. After all, Jaime loved Cersei, but he didn’t appear to hold her in high regard. Once upon a time, he must have, but Brienne doubted that was still true today. Would she genuinely want to switch places with her? 

The number of people Jaime Lannister respected and trusted could be counted on one hand. It was a privilege to be ranked among them. Would she sacrifice that esteem to hold the key to his heart? No, she would not. However, she was still haunted by the insidious whisper that’d made her believe for one brief shining moment that she could have both. 

“Firelight suits you, my lady,” Jaime said at last. “But then, I already knew that.”

She met his gaze and smiled faintly. “It suits you as well.” 

It did. The flickering light bathed his skin in a golden glow one moment and cast him in shadow the next, revealing a man of contradictions. His every angle had been thrown into stark relief. The sharp line of his jaw, the jut of his cheekbones were so defined, they may as well have been sculpted. But it was his eyes that drew her in. They held her in place, sparkling with something fathomless, something wild.

“I thought I knew you,” he said finally.

She blinked. “You did. You do.”

He shook his head. “You surprised me. No one has ever…” he broke off with a strangled snarl. “Where did you come from? How are you even real?” 

“What do you…I-I don’t…” she stammered, perplexed.

“It takes a certain courage to defend the innocent, another entirely to save the wicked from themselves. I do not know another single soul who would have done what you did.”

Brienne licked her lips nervously. “Don’t do that, don’t wreathe my actions in honor and nobility. I meant what I said in the courtyard. You _are_ a good man, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you, then?” Jaime asked, leaning forward to catch her eye.

“You already know,” Brienne gritted out. She swore she could feel _the things we do for love_ hovering in the air between them, glittering like diamonds.

“I would hear it from your lips.”

Damn him. How dare he ask this of her? After everything that had happened…

She revisited the haunting night spent under a heart tree in a godswood where a dizzying vision of the future unfurled and upended her world. 

She shrugged. “I dreamed of you.” 

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Jaime leapt to his feet and pulled Brienne into his arms. For a second, they swayed as if dancing once more.

He went to kiss her and she pressed the pads of her fingers against his lips. “I know you’re trying to be kind, but I don’t want our goodbye to be a lie.”

She drew him into an embrace instead. She kept her hold light and gentle, mindful of the wounds over his torso that were still healing. 

But Jaime would have none of it. "Come here, I won't break," he insisted, tugging her closer.

She fleetingly wished she was wearing her armor. It’d have made it easier to keep her wits about her. But then again, this was her last chance to feel his arms around her, his heat and weight, the breadth of him crowding her.

Perhaps it would be alright to pretend he was hers for just a moment or two.

She tried to think of what to say, and finally settled on, “I shall miss you, Jaime.” She whispered it into his ear and his arms instantly tightened around her.

He breathed her name, just her name, and then pulled back enough to cup her face. He cradled her face the way she’d cradled his in a snowy courtyard not five weeks before. His good hand was warm while his bandaged stump tickled her cheek. She would’ve thought the gesture would pain her, but he gazed at her so tenderly that the symmetry felt cathartic. Her chin wobbled.

“What I said to you when I left Winterfell, _that_ was the lie. _This_ is the truth,” Jaime said roughly before swooping in to kiss her fiercely. 

Almost immediately her shock gave way to white-hot desire, such was his power over her. Brienne kissed him back, pouring her heart and soul into it for one second, two seconds, three…

Burying her hand in his hair, she opened her mouth and let him deepen the kiss. He gave an approving hum and she lost herself in a maelstrom of sensation. 

During their time together up north they'd shared countless kisses.

Kisses, sweet and coaxing, that brought to mind sunlight softly dappling her skin.

Kisses, passionate and tinged with yearning, that were akin to being bathed in silvery moonlight. 

Their first kiss had been as bright and as sudden as a star shooting across the night sky. 

But right then, when he urged her closer and claimed her, kissing her with unprecedented thoroughness, she felt luminous, radiant, _incandescent_ , like she was glowing from the inside out. She'd been set afire, a flicker of flame blazing into a raging inferno that consumed everything in its path, including her. 

He kissed the very breath from her, kissed her so soundly that her knees weakened and she found herself involuntarily clinging to him. 

When he gasped her name between fiery kisses, his voice was so hoarse, so nakedly sensual, that she blushed to the roots of her hair and whimpered his name in response, clawing at his shoulders. He groaned at that, palming her hip possessively, and she gave an inadvertent shimmy at the thought that he was taking what was his.

It was when he bit her lower lip and pushed his thigh between her own that she finally came to her senses. Brienne placed her hands on his chest and pressed to make some space between them. They were both panting hard, their eyes blown, and Jaime looked as desperate as she felt. 

It was too much. She didn’t understand what he meant, why he’d kissed her, and she didn’t have it in her to ask. 

She leaned in to give him one last lingering kiss on the mouth and then drew his bandaged stump up to her lips and bussed a fervent kiss to it, too.

“Goodbye, Jaime,” she said with a tremulous smile and then rushed away before her unshed tears could betray her.


	12. Chapter 12

Jaime watched Brienne slip away and he knew what he needed to do. 

In truth, he'd known since Brienne had followed him to King's Landing. Since he'd crouched down and seen her blotchy, defiant, _stubborn_ face staring back at him. Since she'd plucked him from the jaws of death and then proceeded to perform a series of bloody miracles as if they were everyday occurrences. 

It had all been leading to this. 

It was inevitable.

He went up the stairs and entered the guest room to find Cersei primping on one bed while Bronn made himself at home on the other.

“I would speak to my sister alone,” he told Bronn and when the fucker didn’t move an inch, he snapped at him to get out.

Bronn smirked. “Perhaps I’ll track down that knight of yours. I’m sure she could use some comfort about now…”

Jaime fixed him with a hard stare. “You will leave her alone unless you wish to be buried alongside the rapers in the clearing.” 

Bronn’s mouth twitched, but he lifted his hands in surrender and then slowly swaggered out of the room. Jaime closed the door and turned to his sister.

Cersei’s gaze drifted from his disheveled hair to his rumpled clothes to his kiss-swollen lips. “Kissed her goodbye, did you. I hope you made it worth her while since it’s the last she’ll ever get from you,” she said lightly. 

Jaime could tell she was still stewing about the scene downstairs and his current mussed state, but that she was willing to let it go for now. She wouldn’t want to alienate him when she still had need of him.

“I didn’t see the attraction at first, but I think I grasp it now. You were always drawn to the grotesque. And she’s so _sweet_ , isn’t she, with her maidenly airs and blind devotion to you. Why, just looking into those great big cow eyes of hers must make your heart go pitter-pat,” she cooed with honeyed venom. “But it's no matter, we’ll be well rid of your pet tomorrow and once we set sail, I know _just_ how we can pass the time. I could give you a taste now if you want. After being pawed at by that huge, mannish beast, you must be desperate for a _real_ woman's touch.”

Jaime took a step toward her. “Cersei…”

She misinterpreted the warning note in his voice. 

“Dreadful, isn’t it?” she said, gesturing to her hair that had been tinted a muddy brown. “But surely no one will recognize me looking like this. And that ghastly woman assured me it’ll fade not too long after we pull into port. I still say you should follow suit.” 

Jeyne had provided them with dye to help the twins disguise themselves so that they might evade detection while traveling, but Jaime had argued that it wasn’t necessary for him.

His return trip to King’s Landing had been proof enough of that. With his plainer garb and bearded face, not a single solitary soul had given him a second glance. Seven hells, he’d screamed bloody murder at the guards, waved his golden hand around, and still not one of the idiots had recognized the former Lord Commander.

“I don’t need it.”

She slanted a dismissive look in his direction. “Yes, yes, so you’ve said. But even with your haggard appearance, there’s still enough beauty to you to draw the eye. The Kingslayer is not so easily forgotten as all that.” She picked up the jar and stood to give it to him. “I insist.”

“I don’t need it,” he repeated, “because I won’t be boarding the ship with you tomorrow.”

Cersei went very still then she smiled, a sharp, brittle contortion of her lips that was closer to a grimace. “Decided to stay and die then? Or are you hoping your unsightly _freak_ will take pity on you and let you hide out on her sad little island? You would turn your back on your family for that sorry existence?” Her hand moved to caress her belly as if soothing it.

Just how stupid did she think he was? Her sense of smug superiority in combination with her complete and utter disregard for him no longer wounded him. They merely conjured up a haze of detached astonishment. Could he rank any lower in her estimation? He doubted it was possible. 

“Stop this mummer’s farce. We both know you’re not pregnant, Cersei. I wonder if you ever were.”

“Of course I was,” she spat. “But then my brother left me and the stress of fending off Euron and preparing for war with the Dragon Queen took its toll. If you hadn’t abandoned me when I needed you most, I wouldn’t have awoken in a bed of blood!”

A faint tremor pulled at the corner of her mouth.

Jaime hated to see it. He hated to think of her alone and in pain following such a loss. But he was neither the cause of what'd ailed her before nor the cure now. “You're still my sister, Cersei. I want you to escape Westeros and live, but it won’t be with me. I'm done. _We’re_ done.”

She laughed harshly. “Just like that? You’re fooling yourself, dear brother. You'll be miserable without me. Wretched. You’ll tire of that lumbering giantess soon enough and set sail to chase after me. You won’t be able to help yourself. But I promise you I won’t be waiting for you this time.”

Jaime distantly wondered when exactly she'd _ever_ waited for him. 

As for the rest...Miserable. Wretched. Tired. Every bloody word was an accurate description of his life with Cersei ever since he'd returned to King's Landing short a hand.

She swept forward, her eyes suddenly soft and pleading. "Come with me, Jaime. We belong together. We're one person in two bodies," she reminded him silkily, reaching out to cup his face. 

Her hands felt all wrong. They were too small, too delicate, too smooth. He struggled not to recoil. For the barest moment, he wavered. Thought of going away inside, how much easier it would be if he did. But then he imagined Brienne's face, all bright-eyed and red-lipped after their kiss, and he rooted himself to the spot.

"No, that was just a lie we told each other. Once upon a time, I wanted it to be true, but I don't believe you ever did." He tilted his head and studied her face, the features he'd once fancied he knew better than any other, including his own. But he saw now that it was just a mask that could be slipped on or off at will. "You never honestly viewed me as your equal, your other half. Or if you did, you considered me your _lesser_ half, inferior by nature. You told me what I wanted to hear to keep me tethered to you. And it worked. I was your creature for far too long. But I know now what you knew from the very beginning: We aren't the same, we never were."

Cersei's nails dug into his face before she jerked away from him with a snarl.

He went over to his things and retrieved his gold hand. “Here, take this with you. It’s worth a small fortune, more than any of your jewels, and should help you start over. Bronn will see you to Pentos and make sure you get settled.”

Cersei held it in her grasp, turned it over with consideration. “You know, it’s the best part of you, the _only_ part worth _anything_ anymore.”

Jaime met her steely gaze one last time. “It’s ornamental and useless. Only valuable for what exorbitant price it can demand. I can see why you’re so attached to it.”

He turned to go.

She threw the golden hand at him, and this time, unlike the goblet downstairs, she hit her mark. He’d have an ugly bruise forming on the back of his shoulder by this hour tomorrow. 

“Who needs you? You're pathetic! You’re just a worthless cripple! I can’t believe I ever let you touch me with that stump! It’s too bad your hideous bitch won’t be sailing with me…I’d have made certain she was thrown overboard! A fitting end for her as she should’ve been drowned at birth!”

Jaime kept moving forward and didn’t look back as she screamed herself hoarse.

*****

Jaime found Bronn in front of the hearth. The other man cocked a knowing brow. There was no doubt he’d heard the tail end of their argument. Nobody under that roof could’ve missed Cersei spitting curses at him. It was deafening.

He poured himself a drink and informed Bronn of his plans. For his part, Bronn feigned shock at this turn of events.

“Piss off,” Jaime muttered. “This is what you were pushing me to do from the start. Is that what you want me to admit? You were right all along, cunt. About Cersei…about Brienne…about me.”

"Took you long enough, Kingslayer." 

Jaime clinked his glass against Bronn's in violent agreement.

Bronn reluctantly accepted his terms. He’d play escort and guard for Cersei on her voyage and help get her situated before returning to Tyrion for his reward.

“Well, at least that’s settled,” Jaime said with a sigh. “Provided my sweet sister doesn’t set fire to the cottage and watch us burn to death as she cackles in the distance. Dying right after I finally broke free from her would be just my luck.”

“You’re not dying. Not today,” Bronn declared then tossed back the rest of his ale.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos! I hope you enjoy the two-part ending!

Brienne woke with a start. She couldn't believe she'd nodded off.

After saying goodbye to Jaime, she’d slunk off to the stables to compose herself. She’d stolen a thick blanket on her way out and wrapped it around herself to stave off the night chill before hunkering down in a pile of hay.

She hadn’t intended to fall asleep. She’d only meant to linger long enough that she could be sure Jaime would have retired upstairs by the time she returned. 

Then she'd be free to brood in front of the hearth unobserved. Stare sightlessly into the flames as she counted down the hours until the Lannister twins left Westeros for good.

She could only assume the emotional upheaval of the past few days, nay weeks, had taken its toll, allowing her exhaustion to catch up with her and pull her under at long last.

Sunlight streamed into her stall which meant it was late enough that Jaime must have left for the harbor at least a couple hours before. 

Her heart sank at the thought.

They’d already said their goodbyes, she reminded herself sternly. Even if it had been a bewildering encounter that'd featured far more kissing than expected. 

And it’s not like she’d been looking forward to hearing Cersei’s snide parting shot for her or seeing her delicate hand fitted snugly in the crook of Jaime’s arm as they turned to leave as one. 

She should feel relieved she'd been spared the heartache of witnessing the twins board the ship. 

Instead all she felt was blind panic.

She shrugged off the blanket and made to scramble to her feet, but a hand caught her by the elbow and stopped her. She spun around to her right and there Jaime was, settled in the hay beside her.

“Your alarm is gratifying, Lady Brienne," he drawled with a crooked smile.

When she only blinked stupidly at him in response, he gave a huff of laughter. 

"You remind me of myself last night when I realized you weren’t anywhere inside that damn cottage. I was frantic with worry thinking that Cersei had somehow gotten to you or you’d wandered off and been eaten by a bear. Your armor was still there so I knew you couldn’t have gone far…at least not of your own volition. When it finally occurred to me to check the stables, you were sleeping so soundly that I didn't have the heart to wake you.”

Brienne felt unmoored, suddenly fearful her mind was playing tricks on her. “What are you – Why are you – Was the trip postponed?”

“No. Bronn and Cersei departed this morning on schedule. They should be setting sail within the hour.”

When she just gawked at him, Jaime sighed heavily. “I decided it was for the best that I parted ways with my sister once and for all.”

“Why?” The word was barely a whisper, more an exhalation than anything else.

He met her gaze directly. “Our bond was a lie. We each saw what we wanted to see in the other instead of what was actually there.” He gave a wry shake of the head. “I’m glad she’s alive, but I’m tired of pretending. I can’t be who she needs. Not anymore. I don’t even want to try.”

To say she was shocked would've been an understatement. But she nodded slowly, feeling an immense weight lift off her shoulders she hadn't even been aware was there.

She was profoundly relieved he’d finally broken the cycle. After the past few days, she was more certain than ever that he would live a longer, happier life without his sister at his side using him for her own ends.

Jaime tipped his chin up, pinning her in place with his unwavering stare. “But that’s not the whole truth. You asked the question and you’re the answer. Brienne, I stayed for you. You’re the one I love,” he said quietly, his eyes shining with conviction.

She went rigid, her chest constricting and her breath becoming ragged. How dare he do this to her again. Didn't he realize that deluding himself would only do more damage in the long run? To him, to her, to _them_. 

“No, I’m not. You know how I know?" she asked sharply, her hands curling into fists at her sides. "If it’d been reversed and Cersei had been the one to break down in tears and beg you to stay when you told her you were going to go north, you’d have stayed. Even with this bond that you say was a lie, you’d have stayed. No question.”

Jaime reached over to take one of her clenched fists in his hand. He studied her intently as he began stroking her knuckles with his thumb.

“You’re wrong," he said as if it was as simple as that. "But even if I had stayed in that scenario, it wouldn’t have been out of love. Not the kind of love you mean. Let me try to explain it in a way you can understand…" He paused and bowed his head.

“What if after you rescued Lady Sansa, she’d become cold and hardened, _vicious_ , to survive all she’d endured? Would you perhaps have felt a little relieved every time she unsheathed her claws? Because it'd prove that she was a fighter and the monstrous cunts hadn't beaten the spirit out of her. Perhaps, you’d give of yourself, whatever she asked, whenever she asked, because it was all you could do for her and a part of you felt guilty that you’d been given a sword while the world had conspired to keep her weak and helpless, reliant on others for survival."

Brienne remembered Sansa’s pale, determined face, her steely eyes, and didn’t have to struggle to imagine such a thing. The potential had been there for her lady to follow in Cersei’s footsteps. There was a very real possibility that the darkness might’ve taken Sansa if her family hadn’t been there to draw her back from the precipice. 

“What if over the years Lady Sansa made worse and worse decisions out of fear, paranoia, and sheer vindictiveness, and it came to a point where your honor compelled you to defy her for the greater good? So you joined me and we fought together in the battle side by side and then after we triumphed, you saw that forces were amassing to come for her. 

"At first maybe you thought you could leave Lady Sansa to her fate. She’d earned it, after all, with her cruelty and greed and selfishness. But as the days passed, you grew increasingly conflicted. She was your responsibility, the one you’d served for years, the one you’d promised you’d always protect, no matter what. And now she would die, scared and alone."

Jaime leaned in toward her then, his eyes searching hers. "If I had begged you to stay out of it, to stay with me, would you have done it? I don’t think you would. I think you’d have returned to her."

Put that way, Brienne wasn't sure what she would have done. But she was quite certain she wouldn't have coldly dismissed him then ridden off without a backward glance if he'd wept as she had. 

“You’d have explained your reasons for going and been kinder about it because that’s your nature, but you still would have left. And it wouldn’t have been because you loved her more than me. It’d have been because you felt she needed you more than I did. It wasn’t about love…it was about duty," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. 

“When I left Winterfell, I intended to try to play savior one last time for Cersei, but the closer I got to King’s Landing, the more I accepted the futility of it all. Ask my brother how eager I was to reunite with our sister after I’d been captured by Daenerys’ forces. Ask him how hard he had to work to convince me to agree to his plan to help Cersei escape. By then I just wanted to die. I didn’t even want to face her again. I wanted it to be over.”

Brienne tugged her hand from his grasp. “But can't you see that just proves my point? You left for _nothing_ , then. You were ready to throw your life away with or without your sister, and didn't even spare a thought for me. Which means whatever feelings you had for me must have been tepid indeed if they weren't enough to make life worth living in your eyes. _Death_ was a bigger temptation for you than I was!” she choked out, her voice shredded with anguish.

“Fuck, don’t you get it? You were _everything_ to me!" he growled, cupping her cheek with incongruous gentleness. "You were bright, blazing sunlight during the Long Night. It was only after the dawn arrived that the darkness came for me, whispering that my time was up. My last gasp at honor, my last chance at love with you, wasn’t meant to continue. It was merely a brief shining interlude before my demons came calling. Death didn't _tempt_ me, it just came to collect what was due. But clearly, the Stranger didn't count on one Brienne of Tarth rushing in to save the day.”

She refused to be swayed by his flattery and the intensity of his gaze. “If all of that were true, you wouldn’t have left me in the unfeeling way you did. You didn’t even try to explain. To make it better in some way…” Brienne rose to her feet and turned away. 

Had he even thought about her _once_ after he left her behind? Had she warranted even a moment's consideration? She suspected not. 

“I went away inside,” he said baldly, and she froze with her back to him. 

A chill traveled down her spine at the agonized tremor that accompanied his words. 

“From the moment I left you in our room in Winterfell, I wasn’t there anymore. Not really. I was just going through the motions. Vaguely aware of what was happening, but not anchored to any of it. It was the only way I could do what I felt needed to be done. I couldn’t explain because I wasn’t _there_ , do you understand? I wasn’t there when I rode away. I wasn’t there when my brother freed me from being shackled in that tent. I wasn’t there when I led my sister to the tunnels. I only returned to myself when I saw your face, heard your voice, and you pulled me through the rubble back to your side.”

Brienne whirled around to face him, her eyes wide with shock. She recalled how Jaime had appeared increasingly withdrawn, distant, during those final days before he left Winterfell. How it'd seemed like he was slipping away from her. 

She cleared her throat and winced. It felt like there was gravel in it. "I thought..." she broke off to swallow hard. "I thought you only...did that, _went away_ , when you served the Mad King." 

_And were forced to stand idly by as Aerys committed unthinkable horrors_ , she added silently. 

"Or when you were in tremendous pain," she continued, treading carefully. He'd retreated inside himself after they'd taken his hand, but he'd also been delirious at the time so it was difficult to parse whether his withdrawal had been by choice. 

She hadn't quite understood what he meant when he first gave her that advice to help her survive being raped by the Bloody Mummers. She still didn't understand it. She'd been through several traumatic events since then and she'd never been able to divorce her mind from her body the way he'd described.

He stood and shuffled his feet a bit. “No. I've employed...such tactics to survive all manner of things, including being chained up for a year by the Starks. But when you smuggled me out and led me home on a leash, I was back. I was me. Then they took my hand and I was briefly in and out until you told me to live. After that I was me all the way up to giving you my sword and sending you off on your quest," he said, his mouth slanting downward into a frown. 

“It was spotty after you left. Some days, I was there. Some days...I was back at the Rock with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair...I was fighting you on the bridge, but this time I was at full strength and my hands weren't shackled...I was on Tarth, swimming with you in the bluest of waters that matched your eyes. It was only when I chose to go north, the fog cleared enough that I felt like I was me again for any substantial period of time. My trip north and everything that followed up until I left was probably the longest stretch of time I’ve been entirely present without any lapses since I was a child.”

Brienne blanched, her mouth trembling at the thought.

He smiled grimly. “Have I sufficiently horrified you? Does it mean anything to you that I’ve loved a grand total of two women in my life, but I’ve only been myself the majority of the time with you? With my sister, the woman I devoted all of my life to, I don’t remember half of what we said or did because I wasn’t there. Because there were times it wasn’t _safe_ to be there.” 

She couldn't stop goggling at him and he became desperate, wild-eyed. “ _Brienne_. Please tell me you understand what I’m saying.”

She recovered quickly, moving forward to frame his face with her hands the way she had when she'd begged him to stay in Winterfell. 

“I understand," she said softly, devastated beyond belief on his behalf.

He sagged against her as she gathered him closer. Hushing him, she carded her fingers through his hair and let him clutch at her and bury his face in her neck. When he rubbed his nose over her pulse before kissing the thrumming skin there, she whispered his name and he instantly relaxed, surrendering himself to her.

“Duty and shame are a potent combination, but it wasn’t _just_ the pull of my past that drove me from your bed that night,” he admitted, wrapping an arm around her waist. 

She palmed the nape of his neck and made an inquiring noise, encouraging him to continue. It was startling to realize that she no longer feared what he might say.

“We’d made love and afterward I held you in my arms and watched you drift off to sleep," he said, nuzzling her cheek. "I couldn't help thinking about our future and how little I could offer you. Marrying the Kingslayer would only blacken your good name. I didn’t want to be a burden you felt you had to carry. I thought about how much better off you’d be without me. How much happier..."

She was of a mind to confront him about his faulty thinking, but she was loathe to interrupt when he'd only just begun to open up to her. 

He sighed. "Besides, I didn’t think you’d ever leave Lady Sansa’s service and I doubted I’d be welcome in Winterfell indefinitely, even as the husband of her sworn sword. I feared when it came down to it, your lady would voice her disapproval and you’d choose to set me aside anyway.” 

“That last came to pass and I chose you,” Brienne said. The stony expression on her lady's face before she'd left would forever be etched on her memory.

She felt the curve of his smile against the shell of her ear. “I know. In spite of everything, you came for me...I still can't believe you came for me.” His fingers idly traced a pattern on the small of her back as he released a shuddery exhale. “I went to die with her. The only woman I want to live with is you.” 

He drew away from her slightly so they were face to face. “I would be with you, Brienne. Follow you for the rest of your days. Will you let me?”

Her breath caught at the look in his eye. A lump formed in her throat at the aching tenderness, the quivering hope on display there. 

“I have no desire to be _followed_ , Jaime. I would, however, happily have you join me at my side. For the rest of _our_ days,” she replied, completely and utterly charmed by the radiant smile that spread across his face in response. “There is one thing, though…After we figure out where we’ll go, I’d like to take Alys with us if she’s willing.”

He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Why am I not surprised?”

Brienne shrugged, unrepentant. “I’d just like to give her a chance at a better life. That’s all.”

“May we all be fortunate enough to have that chance," he said, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "It’s a fine idea. She’s a sweet girl and she certainly deserves better than the fate that awaits her if she stays here.”

His good hand curled around the nape of her neck and guided her forehead to his then his hand slid down to take her own and press it over his chest. 

“Say it,” he commanded in a low voice. 

She bit her lip, recalling their first night together in Winterfell and how Jaime had claimed her thus. 

“Mine,” she whispered shakily. 

She could tell he was unimpressed with her hesitance and the way she’d almost phrased it as a question. Jaime splayed his hand over hers and held it there more firmly. 

“Yours,” he said emphatically, his heartbeat thundering against her palm in wild agreement. 

After he released her hand, she shifted to touch his beloved face. His beard tickled the heel of her palm as she flickered a thumb over the bow of his mouth. When he drew the tip between his teeth and lashed it with his hot tongue, she inhaled sharply.

It was unfair, the effect he had on her. How was it that his every touch left a trail of sparks lingering in its wake?

"How presumptuous, Ser Jaime. I am a lady," she reminded him far too breathlessly to pass for anything approaching scandalized.

"Oh, I _know_ , Brienne," he crooned in that sly, insinuating tone that never failed to make her shiver.

He took great delight in watching her tremble as he began kissing the underside of her wrist before opening his mouth a little to suckle the tender skin there, the scrape of his teeth both a warning and a promise.

His boot nudged her feet, urging her to spread her legs a bit so his fingers could locate that sensitive spot high up on her inner thigh and rub circles there until she squirmed. 

Even through the thick material of her breeches, his touch was incendiary, causing her knees to buckle. She had to loop an arm around his broad shoulders to remain vertical.

When he elicited a throaty moan from her, he flashed her a devilish smirk. “What say you and I go upstairs and push those beds together? How's that for presumption, my lady?”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't resist kissing him soundly before taking his hand and leading him inside to do just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn’t until I began writing this fic that it occurred to me that Nikolaj’s acting choices from the second half of 804 through 805 really mesh with this reading of his character dissociating (or at least being seriously detached to the point that he was almost unrecognizable). Because for me, it’s not just that the dialogue and plot itself didn’t fit with what came before it, it's also his acting that was jarring. 
> 
> In his last 1.5 episodes, Jaime seemed genuinely hollow imo, his eyes dead and vacant. And his weirdness actually detracted from the story D&D say they were telling. If the ending of his arc was meant to be as simple as twincest 4 ever, Jaime should've seemed proactive and engaged and desperate to get to Cersei, not despondent and bleary-eyed.
> 
> I’ve always loved the scenes we got between the Lannister brothers over the years, but the final one between them came across as lopsided with Tyrion still emotionally present and Jaime seeming detached, like he was hazily going through the motions. Same with the final JC scene. So yeah, for me this interpretation made sense, especially considering it's canon that Jaime Lannister is a character who dissociates in both the books and show. But obviously YMMV.


	14. Chapter 14

They were an hour’s ride from the harbor when they heard the happiest of tidings from a fellow traveler. 

The Dragon Queen was dead and her dragon had flown off.

Cersei felt a thrill in her heart at the news, a surge of hope and purpose returning to her. She’d been certain the Mad Queen’s days were numbered, but she’d never have guessed her downfall would come so swiftly.

Everyone would be scrambling to fill the throne now, but Cersei would be patient, gather support, and then take back what was hers.

So what if Jaime stayed behind with that wretched creature? That great sow could have the bloody fool. He was a useless old cripple who would’ve held her back.

She thought of the golden hand safely stowed amongst her belongings and how it’d felt pressed against her bosom last night. It’d felt better than Jaime’s flesh hand had in years. 

It was only right it was in her possession now. After all, she’d been the one who’d commissioned it in a vain attempt to make her brother less of a grotesque. 

Looking back, Cersei didn’t know why she’d bothered. The maimed man who’d returned to her was clearly not the brother she had loved. When he’d lost his hand, he’d lost his gumption and pride. He’d become a stranger, a pale shadow of his former self, unworthy of the Lannister name. 

But she wouldn’t dwell on it any longer. Bronn would serve her purposes far better than Jaime ever had. A venal sellsword was easier to control. 

Granted, he'd made some ill-advised remarks toward her over the past few days, but she had faith he'd come around soon enough. 

He’d want to be on the winning side.

Her brothers just assumed she would slink away to Pentos to lick her wounds, accept defeat. She’d show them how wrong they were. 

She would be queen again and the big bitch from Tarth would be the first head to roll.

Pure, unadulterated rage had kept her posture erect and her eyes dry when Jaime had seen them off that morning. Meeting her twin’s traitorous gaze, his expression sorrowful yet resolute, she hadn’t been able to make herself shed a single tear even for Bronn’s benefit. 

She had, however, forced herself to utter a soft sigh when Bronn lifted her onto the horse in front of him before they set off. Then she’d crumpled against his chest as if his strength was the only thing keeping her upright. She’d also made a point of letting her fingertips brush against his on the reins. 

Once they were below decks her seduction of him would commence in earnest. He’d be hers within the day and she’d have him wrapped around her little finger by the time they made landfall. She’d already caught him eyeing her hungrily more than once.

“I expected to see that hideous cow fawning all over my dear brother this morning, shooting me smug looks as if Jaime’s some great prize,” she scoffed, “but she was nowhere to be seen. Do I have you to thank for that? Did you do as I asked?”

Bronn gave a low hum. “I considered it briefly in the stables, but then she proved to be exactly the person I thought she was. Not an evil bone in her body. I decided to wait it out, for her sake. Strike only after she’d said her goodbyes to him. Let her think she really did save the golden fool so she could be at peace. Brienne’s done so much for my family that I felt I owed her that at least. Besides, I've waited for this for so long, it was nice to have the chance to savor the anticipation.”

It was slowly dawning on Cersei that something was terribly wrong, but Bronn had a tight hold on her and she feared she’d break her neck if she leapt from the horse.

“But then I saw how miserable he was with you,” he continued with dark amusement, “how he looked at you with crippling shame like you were this unspeakable sin he longed to bury to keep from inflicting on her. I wanted to laugh when he charged off into the woods with her to save the girl. I watched them fight together in that clearing in unison and then afterward, I knew for certain his allegiance had shifted. I gave him one last test. Told him how you hired me to kill her, and he passed with flying colors so I decided to spare him. It’s not like Jaime Lannister was ever on my list, anyway.” 

“Your list?” she asked faintly, blood pounding in her ears.

Bronn didn’t answer. He began singing The Rains of Castamere. His deep, gravelly voice slid up the scale to that of a reedy young woman’s as the prick of cold steel kissed Cersei’s throat.


End file.
